The Ruthless Biz of TV Holiday Movies: Lots of Joy — But ‘They Want Snow for Free’
The Grinch brings fewer films on tighter budgets, but for writers, the pay can feel like Christmas morning: ‘Sometimes money floats down from the heavens’
I cover TV from L.A. I wrote about the Netflix debate over the release of Stranger Things’ final season, got the inside dope on Ryan Murphy’s legal drama All’s Fair and interviewed Universal Content Productions pres Beatrice Springborn. I’m lesley.goldberg@theankler.com
Crank up the Mariah Carey because it’s the most wonderful time of the year: when Hallmark — with its holiday movies that are produced for less than an episode of Law & Order and feature stars from the ’80s and ’90s — outdraws the likes of CNN, FX and Bravo.
It’s true. As my esteemed colleague Sean McNulty keenly pointed out earlier this month, Hallmark recently topped CNN in primetime viewership. The Hallmark Media-owned channel, now six weeks into its annual Countdown to Christmas programming block, trailed only ESPN, Fox News and MSNBC for the week ending Nov. 16. What’s more, six of the top 10 slots in Nielsen’s top 200 non-news/sports cable TV programs were Hallmark movies.
Still, seasonal movie market leader Hallmark now faces competition from across the landscape, ranging from linear networks like Lifetime and Great American Family to streamers including Netflix and Amazon as well as smaller platforms like Roku and Tubi.
“The biggest change in the space in the past five years? There’s more of them. Everyone is getting into the craze,” says a producer with more than 20 years’ experience making holiday movies. “People realized there’s a voracious appetite to feel good around the holidays.”
But even with the increase in demand, margins on holiday programming are stuck in the snow as linear ad rates tumble and foreign sales freeze up.
“While the cost of making movies has increased dramatically due to unions, the cost of labor, the cost of writers and overall inflation, the amount of money you make off these movies has gotten much smaller,” says another producer behind more than 100 holiday pics across his decade in the winter wonderland space. “Part of that is that linear networks like Lifetime and Hallmark are not getting the same ad dollars or carriage deals, but they still want to keep making the same amount of content to keep audiences. They haven’t increased their license fees in a decade.”
For today, I spoke with more than a dozen people who work in the festive genre about the economics of holiday fare and how the industry’s post-Peak TV contraction has impacted Santa’s messengers.
Read on for all the naughty and nice of holiday programming:
💵 The exact budget ranges for holiday movies at Hallmark and Netflix
⭐️ Who takes home the biggest paycheck from a holiday title, and which familiar ’80s and ’90s faces are sought-after stars of the genre
📉 Why networks and streamers are making fewer fa-la-la films even amid high demand
📺 How Hallmark is experimenting with formats and finding success with scripted and unscripted holiday series
👛 What writers can make for holiday movie scripts, including the shockingly low fees for non-union scribes
🇨🇦 Why Canada is a hotbed for holiday filming (it’s not just the snow) and which other global cold spots are top locations for the genre
📆 Why the “baked-in” holiday filming calendar means a reliable income for scribes with the knack (“it’s a good opportunity” says one lit agent)
✂️ AI tricks, filming in towns already “dressed up for Christmas” and more ways producers are cutting corners to keep the joy flowing