Not as much as you’d think - their target demographic is women in middle America aged 25-54. White? Sure. Conservative? More-or-less, but not *as *much as you might think. Old? Not so much.
Which is why they’re catching such crap for this PR disaster. 1 Million Morons is not actually an *exact *match for their target demographic, and other parts of their audience are pissed.
I may be mistaken but I think Hallmark produces its own ads internally (rather than taking ad submissions from outside and rejecting/approving them.) Unless some employee in Hallmark leaked something to the press saying that “Only the heterosexual ads get approved and the LGBT ones get rejected,” there wouldn’t be an issue.
There’s a difference between saying “You are being hateful/bigoted if you reject LGBT ads” and “You are being hateful/bigoted if you don’t voluntarily produce LGBT ads.”
I’ve never heard of a network producing their own ads for other companies’ products and services. Do you have a cite for this?
EDIT: Zola (company) - Wikipedia
I think you’re wrong about this.
I did some checking, they do amazingly well with Women 18-49 and Women 25-54. We know advertisers care less about seniors, so Hallmark made a terrible business decision bowing to the pressure in the first case.
Checking many sites, their viewership does skew old but it also brings in a lot of the primary target audience that advertisers love. I am surprised by the success of their cheesy movies.
OK, guess I was wrong then.
I agree – while Hallmark may make their own ads (for Hallmark cards, for the Hallmark Channel) internally, it’s extremely unlikely that they make ads for other companies, which run on the Hallmark Channel, in-house.
The original complaint from One Million Moms said something about how the Hallmark Channel is supposedly family friendly so how could they run these commercials. Except the commercials are showing families being formed, just not traditional straight ones. And then Hallmark said the problem was the kiss, except the other two commercials also showed kisses, just not same-sex ones. I’m glad that Hallmark reversed itself, because the original complaint from One Million Moms and Hallmark’s response was pretty weak.
I don’t agree. The wedding industry saw huge gains with the legalization of gay marriage, and continues to do so.
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Estimating-the-Economic-Impact-of-Marriage-for-Same-Sex-Couples-One-Year-after-Obergefell-5.pdf
First, its not 3%, its 4.5%.
Secondly, the percentage of gay weddings to straight weddings has probably been pretty high relative to population numbers, because a lot of gay couples have been waiting a long time, and fighting a long time, for their right to be married. So they’ve been planning weddings in droves.
And I don’t know where you would get the idea that gay men don’t have fancy weddings? That’s kind of like hearing someone say “Rock groupies don’t really give blowjobs all that much”. I don’t even know how to counter that, except with Wait…what…are you fucking kidding me. Have you ever been to a gay wedding?
And while gay people only comprise a minority of the population, it’s a very well integrated minority. It’s not a bunch of “different” looking people that live clustered on the other side of town. If only gay people cared about gay rights, then we wouldn’t have gay rights. But most of us have someone close to us that is gay, an uncle, cousin, sibling or best friend, sometimes a child or even a parent. My old neighborhood in NYC had lots of married gay couples and so does my new neighborhood in light red suburbia.
And we want to see our family members, friends and children treated equally, with decency and respect. That reaches across the political spectrum. I always have mixed feeling whenever a conservative politician changes their views on gay rights because their child came out as gay. One one hand, it highlights the lack of empathy among those politicians- because they don’t understand until it’s THEIR child. On the other hand, they stood up once they “got it”.
So, don’t assume the only people boycotting Hallmark are gays and liberal militants. It might be your red state next door neighbor whose found out last year that their daughter is gay.
It’s a French city, arrogance is independent of location. Being in the eastern time zone is coastal enough.
Yeah, but respect isn’t really what they care about, just their bottom line. They figured out that their choice (which they thought would make them more money) was actually losing money, so they did what they could to reverse that decision.
Sure, people won’t see it as a sincere apology. But it’s hard to sustain the passion needed for a boycott when the company caved. And they at least will get their advertiser back.
I also think we kinda have a responsibility to accept these reversals. If we don’t, and it does become more profitable to stick to their guns even if they made the wrong choice, then we lose any ability to bring things back.
I also don’t currently see this as something that the conservative audience will rally behind, especially since they have so few alternatives to the Hallmark channel. One Million Moms is not really representative of even the typical conservative viewer.
It could surprise me–the NFL thing did. But at least then I’d actually heard of some conservatives who were upset. I’ve not heard of anyone being upset about this ad except after Hallmark pulled it.
What has 15 actors, 4 settings, 2 writers, and 1 plot? 634 Hallmark movies!
They’re all the same. Yes, he secretly loves her and they’ll unite just before Christmas. The family reconciles. Rinse and repeat.
To the right wing: not everyone loves the gender that you would rather have them. It’s their life, grow up and live your own and don’t worry about others.
I’ve always said that “Adam and Steve” would make a GREAT name for a gay wedding planning service.
Well, my mother is white, and in her early 70s, so she fits the first two and she LOVES watching their stupid movies. However, she’s anything but conservative.
Now now, that’s not true! They also do Valentines Day.
Hey, I’m still amazed that The Family Channel, when it was still called that, had some of the most progressive series out during its time.
There was an arts article in the Times about Hallmark movies just before this news broke. The writer said her mother loved Hallmark Christmas movies, but would always pause play after about five minutes and recite who was going to wind up with who and how.
She was always right.
She was also Jewish, so the demographics might be wider than we imagine.
I think there’s a “Hallmark Movie” Bingo Game meme out there.
My mother gets pissed at me when I make fun of them. She takes it so personally. Heh.
Do a Google image search on “Hallmark Christmas Movie Bingo” – there are literally dozens of them. This one is better than most, though it’s missing some of the important tropes, like “dead parent,” “male love interest is a widower with a daughter,” and “heroine’s employer wants to destroy small town charm with big expensive resort for rich people.” 
Do you know hallmark has competition now? lifetime is stealing a bit of their thunder and I’ve heard other networks are taking notice and making plans for next year … soon cable movie channels are going to be like radio stations from the day after Halloween to new years… nothing but Xmas glurge
Now whos going to be truly progressive and start making same-sex bi-racial couple holiday movies?
Give me some money, I’ll write the script for that.
Lifetime has actually been making its own Christmas movies for a couple of years now. Their films are a little less saccharine than Hallmark’s – there’s usually more kissing, and sometimes there’s a “bad guy/girl” who is actually pretty nasty.
Lifetime has also made several Christmas films with African-American casts, though I’ve not yet seen a same-sex couple one.
Of course it’s wider. Why in the world do people assume Conservatives like cheesy romance movies more than Liberals?
