Word on the Street: Hallmark to release 34 movies this Christmas season!

Yesterday, Hallmark aired their preview show to advertise their “Spring Fever” line-up. Like most people, I just recorded it on my DVR and fast-forwarded through the majority of the program just to see what the “sneak peek” was for Hallmark’s Christmas movies. Toward the end of the preview show, Danica McKellar (who hosted the show) announced that Hallmark Channel would premiere 22 new Christmas movies and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries would air 12 new Christmas movies, adding up to a grand total of 34 movies! This is around the number of movies that Hallmark released last year amongst both networks.

Hallmark Spring Fever poster — “Spring Fever” poster image created by Crown Media Family Networks and Hallmark Channel. Poster image found at http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/spring-fever

After watching that specific part of the preview show, I can honestly say that I was disappointed by Hallmark’s “sneak peek”. First of all, it wasn’t really a “sneak peek” to anything, it was more of an announcement. Also, the timing of this announcement was rather odd. Why talk about the Christmas movie line-ups during a preview show for the spring movie line-up? I think Hallmark should have waited until, at least, July to share this news during their “Christmas Keepsake” week or during their Summer TCA event. The other thing I’m disappointed about is the amount of movies Hallmark is choosing to, once again, release. Trying to watch the majority of Hallmark’s Christmas movies is going to be impossible, with Christmas offerings from other networks and real-life Christmas festivities trying to share your time and attention. Out of the 30+ Christmas movies Hallmark released last year, I only saw 15 of them. This leads me to my next point. I remember reading other Hallmark viewers express their concerns about Hallmark paying more attention to the quantity of their Christmas films, which I have to say I agree with. Going back to the amount of Christmas movies I saw between both Hallmark networks, I only liked 8 out of the 15 Christmas movies that I did see. Also, Hallmark put so much focus on attempting to be the brightest and best network during the Christmas season that even the quality of their movie posters suffered. I understand that Hallmark is a business and creates these movies to make a profit, but it seems like Hallmark isn’t putting the concerns of their fans into consideration. Because of their never-ending drive to maintain their power-house status that they’ve acquired over the years, I have a feeling this could hurt Hallmark in the long-run. There may come a time when fans become so exhausted by Hallmark’s ambitious efforts, that they scale back their Christmas movie viewing habits. This action by the fans might cause both Hallmark Christmas line-ups to lose ratings and viewership. For now, though, let’s just take in this news and anticipate the stories Hallmark will bring us later this year. I do appreciate Hallmark putting in the effort to get their audience excited about Christmas. When both of Hallmark’s Christmas line-ups do come around, I will try to watch as many movies as realistically possible and review them for 18 Cinema Lane.