Campfire Girl

A 1970s Childhood Taught Crown’s Michelle Vicary What Gathers Families Around the TV

By Stuart Miller -- Multichannel News, 1/30/2012 12:01:00 AM

When Michelle Vicary was a girl in Southern California, her family would gather around the television to watch one of the only three networks. “A big night was The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family and Nanny and the Professor,” she recalls. “I alternately wanted to be Marcia Brady and Laurie Partridge.”

Although Vicary, 50, would later consider becoming a film director while studying film and television at Cal State Northridge, it seems the Friday nights of her childhood had prepared her for a diff erent career. Today, she’s executive vice president of programming for Crown Media Family Networks (which owns Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel), greenlighting original shows and movies or acquiring programs that can draw a family together around the television.

‘EXPERT AT GENRE’

Vicary has grown through the ranks over the past 12 years at Crown Media Family Networks, assuming her current role in January of 2011. Vicary is well-regarded, both internally and in the television industry at large, as a consummate professional and visionary thinker.

As a leader, she is known for her ability to keep her team focused on common goals, even while goals and priorities are constantly shifting. Throughout her tenure with the company, Vicary has remained committed to and deeply invested in the success of Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel.

Under her current oversight, the Hallmark Movie Channel continues to grow and distinguish itself as a distinct network; no small feat in the competitive and crowded cable business. With the help of Vicary’s keen programming instincts, Hallmark Movie Channel is now in nearly 44 million homes and is one of the fastest growing new networks on the cable spectrum.

“She understands our brand and the family space better than anyone,” Bill Abbott, CEO of Crown Media , says. “She’s an expert at this genre of programming and extremely strategic about the marketplace.”

Vicary’s first job in television, after a short stint working in sales and marketing in the music business, was in the international department at MGM. That led to her getting hired by Crown Media to help launch the Hallmark Channel as manager of scheduling and on-air promotion.

“That was a career highlight, to help launch a new cable network,” she says. “It was a huge opportunity.”

Having been with the network from the beginning gives her an advantage in understanding what it wants and needs.

“She knows the brand inside out, she lives and breathes it,” says Darren Melameth, vice president of program planning and scheduling. “But our audience is not the same audience as 10 years ago. It has evolved, and she knows how to push the brand without breaking it. Every title we acquire or develop goes through her filter.”

Vicary says she learned a lot by working with different CEOs and programming heads, each of whom had “different personalities and corporate strategies. That was a key to my growth.”

Melameth adds, “She knows how to read a room and she learns from everyone,” praising Vicary as a consummate professional who is always charming and witty. “She’s quick to throw a joke into the mix.”

Melameth’s favorite story about Vicary’s interpersonal skills was when she had to reject someone pitching a movie. “It clearly wasn’t right for the network, and she could have resolved it in an email. But she called the guy and spent 10 minutes telling him everything that was great about the project while explaining why it wasn’t right for the network. Th e guy was actually thrilled. He told her how wonderful it was being rejected like that.”

Vicary is also careful not to get bogged down by institutional memory. “I have to make sure to stay fresh and competitive,” she says. “I have to have new voices and be open to their ideas.”

That comes naturally to a woman who always “asks questions of myself,” she says. “I don’t know that I ever let myself get extremely comfortable.” She doesn’t second- guess her decisions but always challenges herself and asks what else she can do.

What she can do is whatever it takes. “I pride myself on the fact that if I see something that needs to be done, I don’t say, ‘that’s not my job,’ I take it on whether it’s the most exciting or most mundane of tasks,” she says.

Of course, some of her tasks are bigger than that: Last year — which Vicary called “the most exciting for this network since we launched” — Hallmark bought the rights to Frasier; gave the green light for 14 original movies, including ones based on classic Hallmark Card characters (Hallmark Movie Channel will double its number of originals in 2012); and introduced a new daytime programming block.

NEXT UP: ORIGINAL SERIES

Coming up, another challenge: original series. But Vicary feels confident. “I’ve learned what my viewers want — to be entertained and to feel something — and I know how to bring them back for more.”

Perhaps her biggest challenge is maintaining the balance between work and her personal life. “I’m very conscious of that,” she says. She wants to be a role model for her children, Hannah and Ian — “It’s important to teach them a woman can be powerful and successful and responsible,” she says — but she also wants to be there for them.

“It’s a huge challenge so I throw myself into my work when I’m here and then I throw myself into my kids’ lives when I’m home,” Vicary says. “I refuse to think one has to be compromised.”

MICHELLE VICARY

Hometown: Studio City, Calif.

Age: 50

Current job: EVP, programming, Crown Media Family Networks

Firstjob : Sales and marketing representative for Caroline Records

Favorite TV shows: Modern Family, Parks and Recreation, Hoarders

Downtime: “Time outside of my work and my kids? You know … not so much. If I give up sleeping…”

High praise: “She is respected up and down the chain of command. She is a go-to person here.” — Bill Abbott, CEO, Crown Media