Precursors Since 1951, Hallmark Cards has owned the
Hallmark Hall of Fame anthology movie series and later its corresponding production company, Hallmark Hall of Fame Productions. From 1990 to 1996,
Republic Pictures Home Video distributed Hallmark Hall of Fame films to home video market. From 1987 to 1992, Hallmark was involved in ownership of the Spanish language
Univision broadcast network, along with their owned-and-operated stations. In 1989, it partnered with
Jones Intercable to create the Jones Crown Partners partnership, which owned ten Wisconsin cable systems. In February 1992, Hallmark Cards had formed Signboard Hill Productions as a production company for the Hall of Fame series and other projects for theaters or TV under president Brad Moore. In April 1992 Hallmark Cards purchased
RHI Entertainment for $378 million plus $50 million in debt getting a film library with more than 1800 hours of film. and established the home media division Hallmark Home Entertainment. Hallmark also purchased a 9.9% stake in British media company
Flextech. In 1998, Hallmark Entertainment and Jim Henson acquired major stakes in
Odyssey Network, an American religious cable network.
Liberty Media, who was a partner in the channel alongside the
National Interfaith Cable Coalition, had discouraged Hallmark from attempting to launch a cable network in the U.S. After the purchase, the two companies relaunched the channel in 1999 with a larger focus on family entertainment programming.
Crown Media Holdings In 2000, Odyssey's ownership group was re-organized into Crown Media Holdings, with Hallmark, Chase Equity Associates, Liberty Media, and the National Interfaith Cable Coalition transferring their shares in Odyssey to the company, and plans for an
IPO. Hallmark received all of Crown Media's
class B shares, which were worth ten votes each, thus giving it control of Crown Media. After The Jim Henson Company was sold to German company EM.TV & Merchandising in February 2000, it withdrew from the Kermit Channel partnership with Crown Media, and sold its remaining stake in Odyssey the following month in exchange for 8% of Crown Media's stock. The company went public in May 2000, selling 10 million shares at $14 per share for about $140 million. Hallmark president and CEO
Robert Halmi, Jr. became chairman of Crown Media, and David Evans became president and CEO of Crown Media Holdings. While its channels had 50 million subscribers at the IPO, the company had not turned a profit; Hallmark Entertainment Network lost $35.5 million in 1998 on revenue of $23.7 million, and in 1999 it lost $56.7 million on revenue of $31.9 million. One month later and after reaching agreements to distribute a religious digital cable network, among other concessions, Odyssey was relaunched by Crown Media as the Hallmark Channel in August 2001, with plans for expansions to original programming. At the end of her contract, Loesch stepped down as the president and CEO of Crown Media US in November 2001. In January 2004, the company established
Hallmark Movie Channel as a sister outlet to Hallmark Channel. The new channel was on track in 2005 to have 9 million subscribers by the end of 2006. In March 2004, Hallmark Entertainment sold the
Filmation library to
Entertainment Rights for $20 million (£11 million). In 2005, Hallmark Entertainment put the Hallmark Channel up for sale, but withdrew it from the market after receiving insufficient offers. Losing $233 million in 2005, Hallmark got a tax-sharing agreement allowing Crown's losses to applied against Hallmark Card's gains. Crown Media had $750 million in loans from Hallmark Cards out of a total of $800 million total loans against $1 billion in equity. While minority investors,
Liberty Media International Inc. and
JPMorgan Chase, might have sold, company management move to clean up the balance sheet and acquire new programming. In December 2005, Crown Media sold off its production arm to an investor group led by RHI founder Robert Halmi Sr. and renamed back to RHI Entertainment. Crown moved to reduce staff by 20% to reduce $13–14 million or more from the balance sheet in 2006. In June 2006, David Evans resigned as CEO then joined RHI as head of global new-media operations and channel. Crown Media had a 3,000-hour library worth $375 million by mid-2006. In October 2006, Henry Schleiff was hired as CEO from
Court TV to prepare it for sale and deal with cable carriage deals expiring (as the channel was at the time in 70 million homes). He would receive a bonus if the channel was sold. Schleiff left as CEO in May 2009. He was replaced by Bill Abbott, previous ad sales head. Crown Media had about $1.1 million in debt thus is attempting to increase revenue and expected to refinance its debt in 2010. Schleiff left to attempt to help other small cable channel to become a major channel like he did with Court TV. He also increase the reach of Hallmark to 86 million homes at the time he left. Crown Media had placed an animated series based on Hallmark's e-card characters
Hoops and Yoyo into development in March 2010.
Classic Media took charged of worldwide distribution of the
Hoops & Yoyo Ruin Christmas holiday special which is pick up by
CBS for a November 2011 debut. In March 2011, Crown Media renamed its Hallmark Channels unit to Crown Media Networks. Hallmark Movie Channel was re-branded as Hallmark Movies & Mysteries in 2014's fourth quarter. Crown Media Holdings formed Crown Media Productions in March 2015 under programming executive vice president Michelle Vicary to fund six telefilms for 2015 and double that in 2016. In February 2016, Crown Media had taken over ownership of Hallmark Hall of Fame division from Hallmark Cards placing under Crown Media Productions. The privatization was completed later that year.
NBCUniversal agreed to purchased Sparrowhawk Media, international operator of Hallmark Channel, in August 2007. In October 2017, Crown Media launched the new channel
Hallmark Drama, and the new subscription streaming service
Hallmark Movies Now. The company also indicated a publishing division was in the works. In October 2018, Crown Media announced an output deal with Canadian broadcaster
Corus Entertainment for exclusive distribution rights to Hallmark Channel original productions, which would air on its domestic cable channel
W Network. The company also partnered with
SiriusXM on the
satellite radio channel "Hallmark Channel Radio" as a tie-in for that year's "Countdown to Christmas" lineup. On March 14, 2019, Crown Media announced that it was cutting ties with popular Hallmark Channel actress
Lori Loughlin, following her arrest as part of a
high-profile federal sting operation relating to college admissions irregularities. In June 2020, after previous CEO
Bill Abbott abruptly stepped down in January, Wonya Lucas was named Crown Media's new CEO.
Hallmark Media On August 10, 2022, it was announced that Crown Media would be renamed Hallmark Media. In October 2022, Hallmark Media announced a subscription video on demand agreement with
NBCUniversal's streaming service
Peacock, which saw a Hallmark content hub with live and on-demand content from Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, and Hallmark Drama added to the platform for Premium subscribers. In July 2024, Hallmark announced that Hallmark Movies Now would rebrand as Hallmark+ in September 2024, with plans for new original series and movies, as well as rewards tied to Hallmark Cards and its retail offerings. ==Units==