Santa Claus was very good to Hallmark Channel, NBC, Freeform and others who aired holiday programming during the Christmas season.
While linear television overall found coal in its stocking — except for football, of course — ad revenues for holiday programming rose 2% to $531 million, according to an analysis by Standard Media Index. Revenues were up 3% compared to 2019.
More networks jumped into Christmas-movie mode — notably GAC Family, run by former Hallmark Channel head Bill Abbott — putting visions of sugar plums in the eyes and wallets of media buyers.
“Holiday programming remains a touchpoint that advertisers want to be a part of,” SMI advertising insights director Nicole McCurnin said. “During the 2020 holiday season, folks were even more cooped up than they were this past year. Running in these nostalgic type programs does build goodwill for brands.”
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McCurnin noted that overall, the fourth quarter is an important time of year for ad spending, but total linear ad spending was down 3% in December. “You can obviously say that the holiday-specific programming outperformed,” she said.
SMI’s data covers linear national advertising. While ad-supported streaming services also ran a significant amount of holiday programming, SMI gets its spending data from ad agency traffic computers and ad buyers do not get complete information about the shows from streaming and digital video outlets where specific ads appear. So, good data on streaming ad revenue isn’t available.
Crown Media’s Hallmark Channel, which has been pursuing a holiday-oriented programming strategy for years, was tops in generating ad revenue from Christmas movies and other holiday programming.
Hallmark Channel holiday programming revenue was $147.8 million for November and December, up by 1% to a three-year peak. It has a 28% share of holiday programming revenue, even with last year. Top titles were Next Stop, Christmas, which brought in $4.4 million in ad spending; and Open by Christmas and A Christmas Treasure, each garnering $3.2 million.
Hallmark also generates incremental revenue with its “Christmas in July” stunt, McCurnin noted. That’s something other networks don’t and probably couldn’t pull it off. “Hallmark is really tapping into that brand equity and owning the holiday year-round,” she said.
Crown Media’s Hallmark Movies & Mysteries had the fifth-most ad revenue from holiday programming with $48.9 million, up 11%.
Viewers Loved a Parade
NBC had the biggest single holiday telecast with its broadcast of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which raked in $54 million. Thirty-second commercials during the parade sold for an average of $540,000, up from $475,000 in 2020.
Overall, NBC generated $89.4 million in holiday programming ad revenue, up 19% from 2020. Its annual Christmas in Rockefeller Center special drew $11 million and the holiday staple It’s a Wonderful Life brought in $4.7 million.
The Walt Disney Co’.s Freeform was third with $76.9 million in revenue in holiday programming, up 4%.
Freeform runs its annual “25 Days of Christmas” stunt, but not every program that appeared as part of 25 Days was counted as holiday programming by SMI. SMI didn’t include Toy Story revenue in its calculations. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and Home Alone were Freeform’s top performers. (While many consider Die Hard a Christmas movie, SMI said it didn't appear on ad-supported linear TV in November or December.)
Among other networks generating significant revenue from holiday programming were Lifetime, with $55.6 million in ad revenues, down 19% from 2020; ABC, with $41.8 million, down 1%. AMC m with $31.4 million, down 32%, CBS (which reentered the original holiday movie fray with A Christmas Proposal) at $19.2 million, up 55% and TBS, home of the A Christmas Story marathon, with $14.2 million, up 84%.
Newcomer GAC Family generated $2.2 million in ad revenue from its holiday programming. Worth noting: GAC announced its holiday programming plans after the upfront, missing a lot of potential ad dollars. ■
