Holiday movie ad wars get more competitive

The Hallmark Channel has long been the undisputed king of Christmas movies, churning out dozens of original flicks every November and December for more than a decade. But as advertisers face increasingly slim audiences on linear TV, other networks and streamers have been elbowing their way into the marketplace for a piece of the holiday merriment. This year in particular, as brands enter a holiday shopping season under the shadow of significant supply chain issues, it’s been especially challenging for networks to win advertisers’ holiday dollars. This has created a perfect storm for newcomers and stalwarts alike to go all-out showcasing their Christmas spirit. Hallmark once again began rolling out its Christmas movies—there will be more than 40 new originals on its properties throughout the season—the week before Halloween. Lifetime plans to kick off its holiday movie season on Nov. 12, and Freeform's is set to star on Dec 1. GAC Family, helmed by former Hallmark CEO Bill Abbott, has whipped up a holiday schedule of its own that includes some well-known Hallmark stars. Plus, networks not typically thought of for Christmastime favorites, including VH1 and Comedy Central, have also announced holiday slates this year. And that’s just on TV. There’s also a plethora of streaming platforms that are dabbling in seasonal content, including Netflix and its library of both classic and original Christmas specials, and Hulu, which has also emphasized other holiday offerings as of late, such as Halloween via its recent “Huluween” horror hub.Register for Ad Age Next: Streaming at AdAge.com/NextStreaming. Those in the AVOD space are also moving in: Roku is premiering its first-ever original Christmas movie this year that’s based on NBC show “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist”; Tubi’s “Holiday Hits” section is robust with over 200 titles; and Pluto TV has launched 10 dedicated holiday channels from romance-heavy Pluto TV Mistletoe to Spanish-language hub Cine Navideño to the “Crackling Fireplace” channel. “Yes, there’s more competition, but we view it as people recognizing what we’re doing; how highly rated and how highly desired it is,” acknowledged Ed Georger, executive VP of advertising sales and digital media at Crown Media, which owns Hallmark. “Imitation is the best form of flattery,” Georger added. Fourth-quarter strength Hallmark’s holiday formula is a reliable one that has also played well for its peers such as A+E Networks’ Lifetime and Disney-owned Freeform. Ad revenue for the Crown Media property alone topped $200 million in the fourth quarter of 2020—more than its second- and third-quarter revenue last year combined, according to Standard Media Index data. The network has “experienced some advertisers making changes or pushing schedules as a result” of global supply chain issues, Georger said, noting that Hallmark’s fourth quarter continues to be “steady” and has seen “an increase in late budgets registered for the holiday season.” It seems that, at least for now, there are enough ad dollars to go around. “From a marketer’s standpoint, bottom line, these events and these shows tend to do really well,” said David Campanelli, executive VP and chief investment officer at Horizon Media, citing the fourth-quarter strength that Hallmark and its competitive set demonstrate year after year. “It’s not surprising that other networks and streamers out there want to copy that success,” he said. “It’s a pretty good formula.” The state of the holiday TV ad market has largely been business as usual this year with no major spending fluctuation from 2020’s holiday season, according to Campanelli. And it seems as though the rise of Christmas-minded networks has not severely fragmented marketers’ budgets—nor viewers’ eyeballs. Christmas movies in October For two weeks in a row, Hallmark’s “Countdown to Christmas” line-up has ranked among the best performing entertainment cable networks, according to Nielsen, which listed it as the most-watched channel in both total day and primetime among households, total viewers and women 18 and older. On Halloween night alone, the network’s premiere of “Christmas Sail” averaged 2.1 million total viewers while the previous night’s film, “Coyote Creek Christmas,” netted 2.4 million—audience numbers that have stayed high year after year. Equally impressive is the fact that Hallmark’s critical fourth-quarter revenue has not diminished year-over-year in the face of mounting competition. In fact, it has nearly doubled since 2014, when its total fourth-quarter ad revenue hovered around $105 million; in 2020, the most recent year for which SMI has complete data available, the network hauled in $209 million in the same quarter. It appears the “battle for holiday ad dollars” isn’t much of a battle at all, but rather an environment thriving on the relative decline of other linear TV properties that can—at least for now—support an increase in competition without significant fragmentation. “We saw more interest than a year ago” in holiday-specific offerings, said Peter Olsen, president of ad sales at A+E Networks. Olsen attributed some of the demand to what he sees as split priorities from marketers: Clients with an appetite for both innovative and often digital-first channels, as well as reliable linear content that includes holiday programming on TV. Interest keeps growing With the bulk of advertisers’ dollars committed to fourth-quarter holiday programming during the upfronts, Olsen said that Lifetime is lucky it has “not seen any massive changes” due to client-side supply chain issues, adding that he has only had a small handful of clients that have looked to move inventory back into early 2022. Brands are attracted to the feel-good nature of this type of programming, said David Desocio, A+E’s executive VP of ad sales marketing and partnerships. “This year, we saw that advertisers are seeing more value in being with the property everywhere,” he said, noting that many brands have opted to employ multi-channel activations that include linear, digital, social and, in at least one case with SharkNinja’s Shark air purifiers, QR code-based shoppable components. Disney’s Freeform hasn’t seen any impact from supply chain issues, according to Abigail Su, Freeform’s director of brand solutions. “Every year, interest for our holiday-themed content grows,” she said. ViacomCBS’s properties have likewise seen strong demand from advertisers keen to get in on the holiday action, with much of its growth driven by brands in the consumer packaged goods, retail and financial services categories—a trend echoed by many other holiday-oriented networks. On top of CBS’s lineup, which includes holiday originals as well as classics like “Frosty the Snowman,” plus a multi-part concert series featuring the likes of Adele and Lady Gaga, many of its parent company’s brands are also ramping up their Christmas offerings. There’s Comedy Central’s “31 Days of Going Home for the Holidays,” VH1’s “Naughty or Nice” schedule, and several weeks of “Nickmas” on Nickelodeon, with ViacomCBS-owned MTV and CMT also tapping into their own seasonal slates. BET’s streaming service, BET+, is also launching four times as many Christmas originals this season as it did in 2020. Register for Ad Age Next: Streaming at AdAge.com/NextStreaming. And then there’s newcomer GAC Family, a rebranded arm of the former Discovery-owned property Great American Country, which kicked off its nearly two-month-long “Great American Christmas” schedule at the end of October with ex-Crown Media CEO Bill Abbott leading the charge. Some observers have suggested that Abbott and his new company are employing the so-called “Hallmark formula” when it comes to its holiday schedule, with entertainment news organizations reporting recently that GAC has even recruited long-time Hallmark stars for its dozen original Christmas films this year. But it hasn’t yet gained the same ad interest as its prevailing competitor. “On the scatter side, the market has definitely been softer than we’d like,” said Kristen Roberts, chief revenue officer and executive VP of programming at GAC Media. That’s not unexpected for the newcomer channel that only launched a couple of months ago, but despite softer demand, she said pricing has held steady throughout. “We know there’s a lot of holiday programming out there. I think we feel really good about the offering,” she continued. Much of this holiday season’s TV ratings have yet to be established, but if the years-old trend of strong audiences continues, marketers may only increasingly gravitate towards Christmas programming as a reliable source of viewers amid the wider trend of linear cord-cutting.

Holiday movie ad wars get more competitive

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