Hallmark Channel changes

Yes, even Hallmark can change

TV has a few things that seem permanent and unyielding.
There’s “NCIS” and “Law & Order,” Judge Judy and Charles Barkley and the Hallmark Channel. Except, now even Hallmark is changing.
The basics will stay the same. This season, the cable channels (Hallmark and Hallmark Mysteries) will combine for about 100 new movies, 40 of them with Christmas themes. Attractive young men and women will still bicker briefly, before deciding they kind of like each other.
But beyond that are the changes, including:
— Streaming. Hallmark Movies Now expands to become Hallmark+, with lots of old shows and some new ones. It starts Tuesday (Sept. 10) with a series (“The Chicken Sisters”), a movie trilogy (“Love on the Danube,” shown here) and a reality show (“Celebrations with Lacey Chabert”); there will be more soon. Read more…

Now it’s new Hallmark vs. (sorta) old Hallmark

On the family-friendly side of the TV world, there’s scrambling in both directions:
— Hallmark is shedding its old ways. Now it has more diversity of people, more variety of styles; that’s clear in several projects, including “Unthinkably Good Things” (shown here), which arrives Aug. 28, 
— Meanwhile, others are grabbing chunks of the old Hallmark world. GAC (formerly Great American Country) has even signed some perpetual stars, led by Candace Cameron Bure and Danica McKellar.
“There’s a lot of talent … that GAC is now working with,” granted Lisa Hamilton Daly, the Hallmark programming chief. “But I think we are constantly trying to evolve our talent pool.” Read more…