Great American Family shakes up Christmas movie season

Christmas movie lovers will be busier than ever binging holiday films this year as the competition heats up while the temperatures go down. Upstart Great American Family is joining the Christmas movie battle for a second season, going head-to-head against stalwarts including Hallmark Channel, Lifetime and others.

Since the start of Great American Christmas on Oct. 21, the family-friendly, faith-based channel is the fastest growing among all cable networks, the company said. The movie lineup features a constellation of former Hallmark Channel stars, including Candace Cameron Bure, Danica McKellar, Jessica Lowndes, Jen Lilley, Lori Loughlin, Cameron Mathison and Jill Wagner.

Great American Family is rotating about 50 Christmas movies around the clock through New Year’s Day, including 18 originals. However, the "original" total is somewhat larger for many viewers because the channel launched in June 2021, meaning many people never saw the 2021 movies.

The big bet

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CEO and President Bill Abbott said Great American Family took a huge risk launching with 12 original Christmas movies last year, including "When Hope Calls Christmas," a two-parter.

"At the time we candidly regretted that we had made such a big commitment right out of the gate because it takes a while for the audience to find you and learn about your network," he told FOX Business.

The bet paid off. Ratings during that first Christmas season ticked up as more viewers discovered Great American Family and gave the channel a solid start for its sophomore season. 

"A lot of our content, while not original, is original to a lot of people this year and I think the ratings are showing that," Abbott said. "We’re up triple digits from where we were last year and overall, we feel very good about the progress we’ve made."

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In October, Abbott tweeted that the Christmas movie kickoff weekend set records for households and total viewers. 

Comfort food

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Abbott came to Great American Family from Hallmark, where he was President and CEO of Crown Media Family Networks, the parent of the Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.

His new channel follows a strategy similar to Hallmark’s. Abbott says a good Christmas movie is about emotion, people connecting and positive experiences that are both cozy and warm while also being celebratory.

"It’s comfort food. It’s the type of content that stands the test of time because you may know what’s going to happen, but it’s how you get there. It’s the journey that makes it interesting and makes it fun," he explained.

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Abbott believes in quality and consistency.

"The genre gets a bad name in a lot of ways because there’s a lot of low-cost content out there that’s produced to create volume and not necessarily quality and we’re focused on the quality."

He adds that Christmas movies are not the type of genre that encourages experimentation.

"I think the pitches we don’t like the most are where someone will come in and give us 80% of a great story and then they say, ‘and then we do something completely unexpected that would be so fun for the viewer and so different.’ That’s not what we’re about and not what we’re looking to do," Abbott said.

He adds the channel works very hard to stay away from anything remotely dark or salacious or uncomfortable to the audience.

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That doesn’t limit creativity. This year’s lineup includes "Christmas at the Drive-In" and "Aisle Be Home for Christmas," a story set inside a superstore. "Drive-In" did well in the ratings. "Aisle" premieres on Dec. 17.

Abbott says creating a good Christmas movie is "a little bit of an art form" that balances variety against keeping the stories consistent enough to create a common experience across all content.

"It’s definitely a discipline staying true to who you are and true to the brand you’re building. That will be what drives our success in the long run," he said.

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Great American Family was formed in June 2021 when Abbott and Dallas-based Hicks Equity Partners acquired Great American Country and Ride TV. The two channels were renamed GAC Family and GAC Living, respectively. GAC became Great American Family in August.

The channel is available in more than 50 million homes and ranks 66th in popularity, according to US TVDB. Hallmark Channel ranks tenth and Lifetime is 31st.

The channel’s free direct-to-consumer app is nearing 100,000 subscribers two months after launch.

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