Hallmark and Lifetime produce plenty of Christmas romance movies every year, but which network does it better?
For years now, Hallmark and Lifetime have been waging in a heated war of Christmas movies - a battle for who can produce the best, the sweetest, the holliest and jolliest movies of them all. These movies all feature warm and fuzzy settings, quirky characters, and swoonworthy holiday romances.
And they all have an absolutely dedicated audience built into them, as year after year devoted fans tune in to see the latest movies, no matter whether they turn out to be good or bad. But after all these years, the debate still continues: are Hallmark's classically favorite Christmas movies actually the best, or has Lifetime started to surpass them in terms of quality?
Lifetime has always had a bit of an edge in its reputation as a network, due in large part to the crime thrillers and steamy romances it regularly airs throughout the year. But as a result of its nature as a network with an edge to it, Lifetime's Christmas movies often have a bit more humor and snark to them.
Certainly as a result of that, Lifetime Christmas movies can appeal to a more modern audience, using the kinds of jokes and innuendos that any Hallmark movie would blush at, even to this day.
Part of what makes Hallmark Christmas movies so easy to make fun of is the incredibly cheesy nature of their stories. Almost too earnest and quaint for their own good, these movies follow unrealistically pretty people in impossible fairytale type scenarios. The number of royal themed Christmas movies alone says it all.
But the network never shies away from its wholesome, corny nature. If anything, putting out record numbers of new movies year after year shows that they're more than happily leaning into it.
It'd be pretty difficult to watch two movies on Lifetime back to back and find any of the same faces or coupling up of characters. It's not a bad thing to lean on comfortable and popular faces and pairings, but Lifetime seldom does just that.
If anything, Lifetime has been committed to finding new talent in recent years, with many of its most successful films in 2020 alone featuring new talent the network has never worked with before. New isn't always a bad thing, no matter how different it may be.
Though Hallmark does mix things up once in a while, there's no denying that the network definitely has its favorite leading actors, particularly in the case of its impressively busy leading ladies.
Actresses like Lacey Chabert, Candace Cameron Bure, Danica McKellar, Alicia Witt, and more can be expected to produce at least one new Christmas movie each year for the network, if not more than that.
It's been interesting to watch the crops of talent change at both networks over the years, but in recent years, it's become clear that Lifetime seems to be the preferred destination for television stars of the 1990s and 2000s.
The cast of One Tree Hill - including Hilarie Burton, Robert Buckley, Tyler Hilton, Bethany Joy Lenz, and more - can regularly be found on Lifetime, while other 90s stars such as 90210 stars and Sabrina the Teenage Witch star Melissa Joan Hart also pop up on the network.
On the other hand, Hallmark has become an almost "second career" haven for older actors, stars of the 1970s and 1980s who can now perfectly inhabit the roles of leading ladies' and men's parents and grandparents.
Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter Birney reunited in Naughty or Nice. Treat Williams and Sharon Lawrence play parents in The Christmas House. Donna Mills appears in 12 Gifts of Christmas, while Florence Henderson, Mrs. Brady herself, shows up alongside the ubiquitous John Ratzenberger in Matchmaker Santa.
Hallmark may be diversifying their stories and characters more this year, with supporting queer characters, but Lifetime has been beating the Hallmark network at this game for years now.
Lifetime regularly features actors of color, interracial romances, Jewish family holiday celebrations, and more, with this year's latest crop of films introducing a disabled leading lady finding love, an Asian American family, and a queer romance front and center.
Though some of Hallmark's older (and, often, better) movies focused on family bonds and Christmas-y magical realism, the network has come to realize that its main audience tunes in for one thing and one thing only: romantic wish fulfillment.
Hallmark has, in its own cheesy way, revitalized the conventional romance novel "marriage plot" for a new, holiday-themed entertainment craving generation, even going so far as to produce Christmas-based adaptations of classic Jane Austen novels in recent years.
As should be clear by now, Lifetime is pretty far ahead of Hallmark in many ways when it comes to appealing to new, younger, more diverse audiences. But they're also not afraid of trying out new things in terms of the stories they tell.
While Hallmark continues to tell romantic stories and retellings of literary favorites like A Christmas Carol, Lifetime focuses on stories that encompass entire families, that feature more urban and modern couples, that challenge biases and beliefs, and that bring a new meaning to the season.
Yet at the same time, there's nothing wrong with loving Hallmark's tried and true recipe for some cozy Christmas comfort. Sure, maybe many of their movies hit the exact same beats act after act, and maybe they all build to the final scene kiss climax between their young lovers.
But there's a reason why Hallmark has long been considered the Christmas network. They know what they're doing, and they work, year after year. The viewership of their movies routinely trounces Lifetime's viewership, too, so maybe Hallmark really does have this market all figured out.
