Michelle Vicary returns to Hallmark as head of programming

Michelle Vicary returns to Hallmark, this time as head of programming. In its new role, the old Exec will supervise all production and original programming on the content platforms of Hallmark.

Since its foundation, Vicary has been part of the media company Van Hallmark. After serving several functions, she left the company as an Executive VP of programming in 2021 after 22 years at the company.

During her term of office, she led some of the most successful series and films for the company, including “When calls the heart”, “Good Witch” and “Chesapeake Shores.”

Vicary expanded the dedication of the company for various stories telling, hiring several LGBTQ+ actors and Greenlighting films such as “Wedding every weekend” and “The Christmas House”, of which the last one yielded the first Glaad Media Award nomination. One of her most important focusing while he was at the company to hire actors of all ages and all beliefs and backgrounds, including Holly Robinson Peete. Vicary supervised the development of Peete’s “Christmas in Evergreen” Filmfranchise and the very first unwritten series of the network, “Meet the Peetes”. The recruitment comes at the perfect moment when the company dives further into unwritten stories with “Finding Mr. Christmas”, “Parties with Lacey Chabert”, “Baked with Love: Holiday” and more.

Vicary was also responsible for introducing some of the most popular actors in the Hallmark family, including Tyler Hynes, Jonathan Bennett, Luke Macfarlane, Kimberley Sustad, Nikki Deloach, Paul Campbell, Ashley Williams, there in Cahill and Andrew.

While she now comes in Hallmark, four years after her exit, it is a bit of a different world than it ever was. Vicary will report to Chief Brand Officer Darren Abbott. Since he started in that role, the retail and entertainment brands have become more of a coherent unity than ever before.

“We call it one characteristic. We are one brand. My task is to think about that opportunity through a consumer lens and incredible content, to deliver incredible products and incredible experiences that use the full width of the brand. And so the future, at the moment, is virtually unlimited,” says Abbott. The Fandom element is something they are for the first time hard in Leunen-De Sold Cruises, the Hallmark Christmas Experience and last month, their very first characteristic panel in San Diego Comic-Con, which filled a room of 2,000 people. “You are going to hear us talking less and less about our individual output or operational units. It’s not just about the greeting card industry or our film business. It’s about the characteristic brand and how we bind all those things together in truly unique ways.”

While the brand continues to grow and collaborate with huge brands such as the NFL, the team concentrates on how the DNA of the brand can also be displayed in other genres.

“The Hallmark brand is a brand for all people, and we have always been. It is based on who we are, so we will continue to lean on it. We will tell stories that reflect the world in which we live and the various stories we can bring to the table,” says Abbott. “That was important for Michelle, it is important for me. That is part of the Hallmark brand. You can’t be a brand about connecting people if you are not for all people, and so at the end of the day that is really important to us – whether in the products we sell, the films we make or the experiences we create.”

Moreover, nobody knows how to tell a Christmas story like Vicary, who was part of the creation of “Countdown to Christmas” in 2010.

“In many ways, Michelle helped to make and define what we think today about a characteristic Christmas film, which in itself is a unique genre that is often simulated but is never duplicated,” says Abbott. “She was really the missing piece of the puzzle, I think, the way I think of the brand.”

Although the team only recently started leaning the experience of the company, Vicary saw it years ago. In 2019 she said Variety: “What we have built is a brand experience. We are part of the traditions that people experience this time of the year, we are what people are talking about when they are talking about entertainment and Christmas, and the audience not just loves what we do, they thank us for it.”