Hallmark vs. Great American Family: Who’s Winning the Holiday Movie War?

Hallmark. Period. Is this surprising? It could be to some, considering that the coverage around Great American Family feels a bit both sides-y, always presenting the network as an actual rival of Hallmark’s and rarely ever reporting on the networks’ barely measurable ratings. Just look at the graph above, which charts all of the times that a Hallmark movie went head-to-head with a Great American Family movie this season. Of the 14 Christmas movies aired on GAF through December 8, four of them — Catering Christmas, A Royal Christmas on Ice, Christmas at Pine Valley, and I’m Glad it’s Christmas — didn’t even place in the top 150 cable programs of the night when measuring viewers 18-49.

By comparison, on the nights that seemingly no one was watching Great American Family, Hallmark’s Jolly Good Christmas ranked at #8; Lights, Camera, Christmas ranked at #12; Three Wise Men and a Baby ranked at #6; and Haul Out the Holly ranked at #11. In every single instance, these Hallmark movies were the #1 scripted programs of the night.

And just to throw more numbers out there — of the holiday movies that aired between the season’s kickoff on October 21 through December 8, Hallmark’s holiday movies averaged 2M viewers each; Hallmark Movies & Mysteries movies averaged 877K viewers each; Lifetime’s movies averaged 428K viewers each; and Great American Family’s movies — the ones that charted — averaged 282K viewers each. Without factoring in the four films that didn’t chart, Great American Family is pulling in better ratings than the original holiday movies airing on some networks — networks like ION, UPtv, and BET. Like GAF, the majority of the holiday movies aired on those networks fail to make the daily ratings charts.

If Hallmark has any competition, it’s CBS. The two movies aired on CBS during the range in question (pre-December 8) averaged 3.34M viewers. But remember: CBS is a major network and Hallmark is a cable network, so CBS’ audience is naturally larger. And even if CBS beats Hallmark in ratings, they only offer a tenth of the original movies that Hallmark does.

Hallmark’s dominance extends beyond ratings and into the larger cultural conversation. This is where it seems like Great American Family is making major headway, but the stats don’t back it up. Looking at Google search trends for the duration of the holiday movie season, Hallmark is consistently on top. Hallmark’s made headlines this holiday season too, primarily for the record–breaking ratings of Three Wise Men and a Baby.

As for GAF, it’s very hard to track its imprint because the network was known as GAC (Great American Country) last year, Great American Family this year, is part of Great American Media, and has a lineup of movies called Great American Christmas. The branding is beyond confusing and that’s evidenced by the fact that more people google “GAC” than “Great American Family,” which is the actual name of the network. But even if you added all of the search volume for the different iterations, it barely touches Hallmark.

The truth is that people aren’t talking about Great American Family’s movies so much as they’re just talking about network star and CCO Candace Cameron Bure.

That spike in search for Bure correlates with the actor’s Wall Street Journal profile wherein she said that GAF’s holiday movies will focus on “traditional marriage” (which can be taken as coded, homophobic language). This was a major news moment, one that received backlash from Hilarie Burton and JoJo Siwa, and led to frequent holiday movie actor Neal Bledsoe to cut ties with the network. This uproar definitely raised Bure’s profile, evidenced by related search interest settling down at a point higher than it was at prior to the WSJ piece, but has it helped out Great American Family’s ratings at all?

No, it has not been worth it — and that is potentially a major problem for GAF. The Wall Street Journal profile that earned the network so much attention focused on Bure’s defection from Hallmark to Great American Media in April 2022. Bure’s career change is part of an attention-grabbing holiday movie trend, one that started last holiday season with the departure of Danica McKellar from Hallmark. The conversation around Hallmark movies this year, at least for those who spend time seriously thinking about holiday movies, is centered around who is and who isn’t leaving which network.

Bure and McKellar are definitely the biggest names to leave Hallmark for Great American Family; McKellar starred in Hallmark holiday movies for seven consecutive seasons until her departure, and Bure starred in 10 Hallmark holiday movies since 2007. This is the first year since 2014 that Hallmark has not had both a Candace Cameron Bure movie and a Danica McKellar movie in their holiday lineup.

All that is to say, the move has not paid off for Bure, McKellar, or GAF.

Despite being the first major Hallmark star to pack up and move, McKellar’s Christmas at the Drive-In was watched by 482K people; by comparison, 1.98M people were watching Hallmark’s A Royal Corgi Christmas at that time. This is a major step down for McKellar, whose You, Me and the Christmas Trees was watched by 2.22M people on Hallmark last year. That’s a 361% decrease in McKellar’s audience, year over year.

The news is even worse for Bure, the undisputed former queen of Hallmark whose jump to GAF garnered the most attention that the network has ever seen. Her movie, Candace Cameron Bure Presents: A Christmas… Present, got a primo Thanksgiving weekend release in the wake of the kerfuffle around her big WSJ profile. A Christmas… Present was watched by 462K people. That’s 20,000 less than McKellar’s movie.

By comparison, 2.43M viewers tuned into A Holiday Spectacular on Hallmark during that time. This was a major step down for Bure, whose last Hallmark movie — 2021’s The Christmas Contest, which also aired the Sunday after Thanksgiving — was watched by 2.95M people. That’s a decrease in viewers of 539% year over year. Bure did not bring her Hallmark audience with her to GAF (and she only brought 8% of her 5.6M Instagram followers).

Before we can look at what’s ahead, let’s look at where we stand right now. As already mentioned, Hallmark  holiday movies are still massively successful, generate tons of search interest, and are routinely the most-watched scripted program any and every night they air. All of that is true, even if total viewers are only nominally the same.

Comparing the first 32 Hallmark movies (including Hallmark Movies & Mysteries) of 2022 with the first 32 from 2021, ratings are — on average — down 130K. That’s not much considering cable’s natural attrition and whatever dent GAF has made (if any). This also doesn’t take into account that Hallmark struck an unprecedented deal with Peacock to make their films available on the streaming service for a limited time following their network debut and allows Peacock subscribers to watch a live stream of all three Hallmark networks — Hallmark, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, and Hallmark Drama — just as easily as if they were watching via cable or satellite. And don’t forget: Hallmark also scored its most-watched movie since 2019 in Three Wise Men and a Baby — which is also the most-watched TV movie of 2022 across all of cable.

Now let’s look at Great American Family.

Considering that no GAF movie charted when the network was known as GAC, this year is an improvement over 2021. However, Great American Family is far from overtaking or even tying Hallmark in the ratings. It’s also hard to think of what GAF could possibly do to boost their ratings. They already poached the competition’s biggest star and it didn’t make a sizable difference in Hallmark’s nor GAF’s ratings.

In order to surpass Hallmark, GAF first has to overtake Lifetime’s slate of holiday movies, which regularly feature Mario Lopez and Melissa Joan Hart. This is a far more attainable goal: Lifetime’s 2022 holiday movie viewer average is 428K, which is down from 603K in 2021. Still, GAF will have to work hard to compete with Lifetime, a network that has decades of name recognition and a reputation as a holiday movie destination, even if it’s drawing less viewers this year.

Hallmark’s lead in the ratings is so significant that it would probably take Hallmark fumbling in a major way for any other network to catch up with them. And considering how ambitious Hallmark’s 2022 slate is, with films that vary in genre and plot and tone and cast more than ever, the future looks merrier and brighter for the network. And as for GAF, they’re going to have to try a lot harder — and probably wait a while longer — to become a holiday tradition like Hallmark.