My Dream Hallmark Seasonal Programming

As part of my effort in de-cluttering my digital footprint, I crunched the numbers on all the movies and television I’ve watched and recorded on different rating websites. From analyzing the data, I came away with some ideas on Hallmark's seasonal programming and some movies they should make next.

Note: This is just my dream idea, not reality.

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January - Winter Escape

For January, the programming block is 'general winter movies.' They are secular, as a departure from the previous months' movies based around Hannukah and Christmas. The movies often have themes of embracing change in the New Year and involve winter sports. A great example is the One Winter trilogy that starts with a disastrous NYE party, involves snowboarding, and the main characters make important life decisions about their jobs.

From 2016 to 2020 the block was called “Winterfest," from 2021 to 2024, "New Year New Movies!” and in 2025, "Winter Escape." The new name of Winter Escape captures the Southern Hemisphere movies like My Argentine Heart which is our winter and their summer.

I hated the change to "New Year New Movies!" as it was a lie. The first year it was only 35% new movies in the app's line-up and kept dropping in the percentage of new movies as the years went on. It seemed like a dumping ground for Hallmark to launch new movies in January they were later going to line-up for other seasonal programming. They were trying to pretend more of the movies were new release than actually were new. The double-dipping still occurred this year, with "The Perfect Setting" being a Valentine's Day themed movie. Weirdly, Hallmark premiered a movie in the Valentine's Day programming, Return to Office, that would have been a much better fit in January with all of us going thought RTO after the December holidays. I'm not sure why they didn't just switch those films.

While I love Hallmark's secular winter programming, I'm frustrated by the recent trend of eroding the winter themes to just pre-launch later year movies and pretend they're made for January. I enjoy the skiing, figure-skating, and New Year's Eve themed romance movies, I don't want to immediately jump into spring programming in January. From my number crunching, I believe Winter in Vail is Hallmark's most successful movie from this programming block, so looking at what fans enjoy, I'm right - January is for winter-themed movies.

February - Loveuary

March - Spring into Love

April - Austen in April / Spring into Love

May - Passport to Love

June - June Weddings

July - Red, White, & Love / Christmas in July

August - Summer Nights

September - Summer Nights / Fall into Love

October - Fall into Love

November - Fall into Love / Countdown to Christmas

December - Countdown to Christmas

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How do y'all think Hallmark should they change their programming schedule?