Hallmark Christmas Movie Outrated Everything On Cable

Scene from 'A Merry Scottish Christmas'

The holiday spirit officially took over the cable airwaves ahead of Thanksgiving, as a trio of brand new Hallmark Christmas movies each debuted to an audience of more than 1.9 million viewers and one film, “A Merry Scottish Christmas,” beat every out cable news program on television last week.

“A Merry Scottish Christmas” was the fourth most-watched cable program last week, Nielsen data shows, scoring 3.33 million viewers for its Saturday night premiere and ranking only below “Monday Night Football”-related coverage on ESPN.

Forbes reports top-10 most watched cable programs last week were rounded out by episodes of “The Five” and Wednesday night's “Jesse Watters Primetime,” all on Fox News.

The Sunday premiere of “Holiday Hotline” on Hallmark had 2.27 million viewers and was the 16th most-watched cable program, and “Navigating Christmas,” which was released Friday night, had 1.97 million viewers in the No. 36 spot.

The films' success pushed Hallmark to become the third most-watched cable channel of the week in primetime, with an average of 1.35 million viewers.

Hallmark fell behind ESPN’s 2 million primetime average viewers and Fox News’ 1.79 million, but the network out-rated MSNBC, CNN and HGTV between 8 and 11 p.m.

In total-day viewership, the Hallmark Channel was the fourth most-watched behind Fox News, MSNBC and ESPN, in that order.

Hallmark Christmas movies have been a staple of the holiday season for more than a decade and the total number of new original films has risen each year since 2009, when Hallmark put out nine movies. More than 300 Christmas movies and a handful of Hanukkah films have been aired on the brand’s channels since. Hallmark will release a total of 40 brand new movies this holiday season—31 originals through the Hallmark Channel's "Countdown to Christmas" and nine in Hallmark Movies & Mysteries' "Miracles of Christmas" lineup. Nielsen in 2021 estimated that more than 80 million people watch at least a few minutes of a Hallmark movie each Christmas season.