Great American Family Proudly Champions Faith and Family, CEO Bill Abbott Says
- Michael Foust Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
- Updated Oct 21, 2024
The CEO of Great American Family says the network strives to be a place where faith is celebrated and where families can gather around the television without stumbling upon salacious content. Great American Family launched its annual "Great American Christmas" event this month, featuring 18 new movies, beloved classics, and 24/7 holiday programming throughout the Christmas season. Although Christmas programming in the fall has its skeptics, CEO Bill Abbott says Great American Family's fans embrace it -- especially during an election season when negative content dominates the news.
"We've found through the years there's no ceiling on positivity and no ceiling on feel-good movies," Abbott told Crosswalk Headlines.
Great American Family's library is large enough that it was able to launch 24/7 Christmas programming the weekend of Oct. 11, one week earlier than scheduled. This year's movies feature such actors and actresses as Candace Cameron Bure, Jen Lilley, Laura Osnes, Danica McKellar, Trevor Donovan, and Jesse Hutch.
"The results in the first weekend were tremendous," he said of ratings. "We're showing growth on the linear side of the business."
Great American Family launched in 2021 as a rival of Hallmark and as a home to content it says celebrates "faith, family and country." Its merger with faith-based Pure Flix in 2023 was natural, Abbott said. It launched a streaming service, Great American Pure Flix.
"It gave us the latitude and the license, really, to be more faith-driven on the linear side," he said of the cable/satellite channel. "And it was always our goal to be supporting the pillars of faith, family, country. It's how the business was founded -- the principles on which it's founded. But then when you add Pure Flix to the mix, it was just a natural that we really lean into it."
"Quite frankly," he added, "there's just very little content out there that focuses on those areas. So [we were] very proud to do that, and the results have been great."
The company, Abbott said, strives to be unique in its programming.
"We're taking the point of view that is very rarely seen in entertainment, which is supportive of the values of faith, family, and country, and being uplifting around faith, family, and country," he said. "We think that it's very important, for the culture, to really create content in that way. And then above and beyond that, [to create content that is] just entertaining, high-quality stories that make you feel good, that are never in any way salacious or gratuitous.
"[Fans] want something that they can watch and feel good about."
Related Article: Great American Family's Christmas Lineup Features 18 New Movies and Beloved Stars
Photo Credit: ©Pure Flix/Great American Media, used with permission.
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
