Hallmark Programming EVP Credits Holiday Dominance to Production Partners ‘Who Are Used to Working at Our Pace’

Each holiday season, like clockwork, Hallmark debuts a stacked and star-studded lineup of new Christmas movies — a cadence programming EVP Lisa Hamilton Daly attributes to the network’s loyal partnership with several production companies.

“We’ve developed a stable list of producers and production companies that we work with who are used to working at our pace. There’s quite a lot of people that work at our pace, but probably not at our volumes,” Hamilton Daly told TheWrap for this week’s Office With a View, referencing multiple production companies filming multiple projects around the globe. “It really is about being able to trust those partners that we are working with to do good work for us … We really live and die by our partners.”

Hallmark hopes to continue leading the pack in Christmas programming against cable competitors like TBS and Great American Family. It maintains that momentum with months-in-advance planning and snappy production calendars. Hamilton Daly revealed the network already has the majority of its 2024 holiday lineup plotted out.

To maintain this focus, the EVP, who previously developed series like “Virgin River” and “Firefly Lane” during her time at as director of original series at Netflix, also reorganized teams to ensure several staff members were focused on the network’s holiday slate year-round.

Even when the double Hollywood strike threw a wrench for every major studio, Hamilton Daly’s team went into the labor dispute armed with scripts delivered earlier than usual in anticipation for the work stoppage.

“We started preparing for [the strike] last October,” Hamilton Daly said. “I don’t think we understood how long the actors would be on strike, but I was aware that we’d have a writers’ strike, so we started to push our partners to deliver stuff a little early [and] for a large number of our shows, we were able to produce early.”

Despite their best efforts, the SAG-AFTRA labor dispute dragged through the end of summer, prompting the network to employ international-based actors from Canada and Europe who were not impacted by the strike. Despite the labor workaround, Hamilton Daly admits the limited casting options internationally might have impacted the diversity of this year’s releases.

“When I look at the slate and the [strike’s] impact on it, I’m like, ‘Well, in an ideal world, that show might have looked different,’ but we did what we could in order to deliver a full slate,” she said.

Centering inclusive casts, characters and storylines has been a priority for Hallmark in recent years, and one that distinguishes the channel from competitor Great American Family, which has been heavily criticized for excluding same-sex couples from its programming as it focuses on “traditional marriage,” according to chief content officer Candace Cameron Bure.

“We really want people to be able to see themselves in our movies, and we know that people seeing themselves means that there’s a wider range of people who really are excited when we tell their stories,” Hamilton Daly said. “I think it’s just smart business. There’s a lot of amazing people in the world with amazing stories, and we just want to be sure that we’re looking around and really including them.”

How do you balance movie formulas with keeping content fresh?
At the core of all of our movies, it comes down to emotional connections between people and a positive outcome. We stay rooted in those essential elements that people are always going to find their way back to each other — whether it’s a family or romantic couple or a group of friends. Whether it’s a Christmas movie or a Hanukkah movie, you want make sure you really feel the warmth and beauty of that time period [and] spirit. Romance is a real staple for us — we usually do have a romance somewhere in there — but we can also lean on friend groups and family. Around the holidays, there’s a lot of opportunity to tell stories of how families come apart and then come back together.

What is something you’ve learned from the industry that you would like to pass on?
Some of the most interesting career moves have come just from taking a leap or taking a risk. I moved across the country in one day at one point — just do the thing. You feel like there is a trajectory for your career, but you really have to let go of your preconceptions and just follow the path that opens up for you, because it might be very different than what you thought it was going to be when you started out. I think that’s the hardest thing. And being really open to trying a new thing or something you didn’t think was what you were going to do is the best way to follow your heart and your passions as they develop in real time.

What is a challenge you faced in your career and how did you overcome it?
When I started out, the business was a lot tougher for women to just be fully themselves — there were a lot of women who would never display the pictures of their kids on their desk and they would maybe not get pregnant when they wanted to. It was a very sexist industry only as recently as 20 years ago and [it was difficult to figure] out how to be fully yourself in this business and be open about being a mom and having other interests outside the office. I feel like it’s slowly getting better, but still has a long way to go.

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