The world of holiday getaway programming carries on to develop. Whilst Hallmark Channel and Life time have witnessed significant results with their “Countdown to Christmas” and “It’s a Great Lifetime” slates, respectively, Excellent American Family joined the discussion in 2021.
In June 2021, the network, initially tilted Wonderful American Nation (GAC), was obtained by GAC Media, a group formed by previous Hallmark CEO Bill Abbott and Hicks Fairness Partners. In the tumble of that yr, the community was relaunched as GAC Loved ones. (Abbott stepped down from Hallmark Media in 2020, soon immediately after the network faced backlash for pulling a Zola advert showcasing a identical-intercourse couple.)
Below GAC Media, Terrific American Country improved to “GAC Family” and afterwards to “Great American Family” — the title they have absent by since August 2022. The channel turned very similar in articles to what Abbott had produced at Hallmark, which includes initial made-for-Tv set movies, getaway programming and major franchises. Even so, it also focuses additional intensely on religion-driven programming.
GAF obtained Time 2 of “When Hope Phone calls,” a spin-off of Hallmark Channel’s “When Calls the Coronary heart,” as perfectly as reruns of “Fuller Residence,” which was only obtainable on Netflix prior to the offer. Soon after Hallmark Channel axed their yearly “Kitten Bowl” unique on the working day of the Super Bowl, Abbott picked it up and will air the to start with “Great American Rescue Bowl” in February.
On the expertise facet, quite a few common faces in the holiday getaway motion picture globe produced the shift around to Wonderful American Family, which include Trevor Donovan, Jen Lilley, Jessica Lowndes, Jesse Metcalfe, Danica McKellar, Debbie Matenopoulos, Cameron Mathison and Lori Loughlin. In April 2022, the network declared that Candace Cameron Bure, who experienced a prolonged-standing romantic relationship with Hallmark for more than a ten years, was joining the community as chief imaginative officer to enable create, deliver and star in religion-crammed content material.
“The truth is I’ve been below contract with Hallmark for a extremely, quite extensive time. And people have been completely superb. It just so transpired that my contract was expiring when Great American Relatives started out up,” she advised Variety about the determination. “We did not commence acquiring people conversations until eventually we ended up nicely into negotiations with Hallmark Channel for renewing. And as each enterprise particular person knows, you’ve obtained to do what’s correct for contracts. It didn’t operate out with Hallmark and so we began speaking to Bill.”
GAF has confronted a bit of controversy given that. In November 2022, Bure informed WSJ that the channel experienced no programs to air films centered around identical-sexual intercourse partners and instead will aim on “traditional relationship.” At the time, Abbott included, “It’s unquestionably the 12 months 2022, so we’re informed of the trends. There is no whiteboard that states, ‘Yes, this’ or ‘No, we’ll never go right here.’”
As for regardless of whether the channel will feature on any non-Christian holiday getaway videos, Bure told Range, “I’m certain as the channel carries on to create material, it will include things like other holiday seasons, but I feel we know the core audience and what they really like is just how Bill initially designed the Hallmark Channel and that was Xmas and all those traditional holiday seasons and so that’s what the focus is heading to be. You acquired to begin somewhere.”
Lots of actors spoke out following Bure’s remarks. Neal Bledsoe, who has starred in two films for GAF, solely shared with Wide variety that he is distancing himself from the network and standing with the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood.
Terrific American Spouse and children is distributed by Cox, Dish, Frontier, Mediacom, Ideal, Spectrum, U-verse, Fios, and Xfinity and is in a lot more than 50 million homes. To observe Excellent American Loved ones, viewers can text Christmas to 877-999-1225.