Hallmark Channel has renewed its first-ever primetime series, Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove, the Saturday-night romantic drama starring Andie MacDowell.
Hallmark said the series, centering on MacDowell as a small-town judge and Dylan Neal as the town newspaper editor, has made it the top cable network in its 8-9 p.m. Saturday timeslot, usually running ahead of a Hallmark original movie. The pilot aired in July and was viewed by more than 3.8 million unduplicated viewers, according to the Crown Media outlet. Based on a popular fiction book series by Macomber, the show, produced in Vancouver and set along the coast in the Pacific Northwest, also features soap star including Barbara Niven and Bruce Boxleitner in the cast and keys in on romantic, family and friend relationships.
MacDowell, Neal, Teryl Rothery, Niven and Boxleitner will all return to the second season, for which production will begin in 2014. The second season will debut in 2014.
“We are incredibly pleased with the tremendous success of Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove, our first-ever primetime series,” Michelle Vicary, executive vice president, programming, Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel, said in a renewal release. “We are so thrilled to work with Debbie Macomber and have the opportunity to bring to life her beloved book series, which was the perfect fit for Hallmark Channel.”
On Saturday, Oct. 12, at 9 p.m. Hallmark Channel will air a backdoor pilot to a potential second primetime series, Signed, Sealed, Delivered, from Touched By An Angel producer Martha Williamson and starring Daphne Zuniga as supervisor of a team of postal detectives who deliver letters from the past. That comedic drama would debut in 2014 if it's picked up, the channel said.
