This post is a break from our recent movie review fare to call out the cable division of Hallmark. So with it being the 10th anniversary of Countdown to Christmas, the company decided that they should overload the schedule with 40 premieres. They have been advertising the schedule for over a month with sneak peeks and commercials indicating the "official schedule" being premieres on Thursday and Friday on Movies and Mysteries and premieres on Saturday and Sunday (plus an all week Thanksgiving premiere-athon) on Hallmark Channel. This all made sense to me so that diehard fans (or those with a crazy goal and can do attitude) can see all of the premieres over the season. Well apparently something must have happened because Hallmark has changed their schedule for the rest of the season beginning with this weeks Friday premiere of Godwink Christmas 2 (you get the idea here). There was some back and forth with fans on their Facebook page where they confirmed the change in their comment responses. I imagine there was also some grumblings on Twitter and other social media sites as well. So there are now multiple premieres on Saturdays and Sundays onboth networks with conflicting times at 8pm and 9pm. Anyone trying to watch the movies live (I don't fall into this camp) will need to give up on that dream. The spread out of the premieres made it easier for me to both watch and post my reviews regularly and not get completely Christmas-ed out. I wonder if they have been seeing low ratings for the M&M premieres and hope that this move will yield better results.
Based on the movies I've seen so far this year, I'd recommend they focus on quality instead of quantity and I'm sure that limiting the number of premieres would result in improved ratings/viewership. I am sure that they have their own plans which seem to lean towards quantity forsaking all else. I know that they have Christmas movies 24-7 and only show their own movies but it would be nice to show more of their older films and maybe repeat some of the older ones more often. They could even pay for some older "independent" (ie not developed by a specific network) Christmas content that hasn't been on TV for years or has limited appearances. One example would be The Nutcracker, I mean the ballet not a movie about the ballet. Ovation TV used to do the Battle of the Nutcrackers but they don't show them anymore and many of the options would probably be available for a reasonable price to televise. Another example could be something like the fabulous (my opinion but it did also get two award nominations) TV movie The Christmas List (1997) with Mimi Rodgers that originally appeared on the long gone Family Channel. They could always have a throwback classic Christmas movie thrown in there for good measure, I'm thinking along the lines of Shop Around the Corner (1940) or both versions of Christmas in Connecticut (1945 and 1992). It's not their usual fare but they may attract others beyond their typical audience with some different offerings. I know there is a lot of additional Christmas content out there that is just wasting away with the increased focus on new content and lots of it.
All of this to say that I am going to continue in my attempt to see all 40 premieres this year but it's going to be a bit harder to fit it in with my life and be timely. There are only maybe 10-12 that my spouse is interested in watching so I try to fit my movie watching in when we aren't spending time together. In the end, I probably will be posting my "reviews" about 2 to 4 days after airing date.
Feel free to share your thoughts about Hallmark making such a huge schedule change after their very public and highly promoted schedule announcements. Also, feel free to comment on the thought of adding some different Christmas content and what you'd recommend.
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