Hallmark Channel To Play Exact Same Love Story From Now On.

By Chris Churchill/Contributor

Kansas City, Missouri

Executives at Hallmark Entertainment have announced a new strategy to finally, once and for all streamline operations at the struggling Hallmark Cable Channel. They will be playing exactly the same love story from now until the channel brainwashes every lonely forty-year old woman in middle America. Executives claim that their audience will hardly notice the change.

“We need to let our loyal audience know that this will change very little at The Hallmark Channel. The same themes you have come to love and expect, nay demand of us, will be fully in tact. We will simply not need to produce any new content, which will free us up to get better advertisers and make funnier greeting cards.”

In a diagram presented to the half-full conference room at the Hyatt Crown Center in Kansas City, all the elements of a Hallmark produced love story were laid bare in excruciating detail. It seems that, based on ratings success and subsequent market research, a successful Hallmark love story begins with a professional woman who feels somewhat less than successful in her personal life. It advances to a chances meeting with a man who she initially finds repellent. At this point, they are drawn together by forces (possibly supernatural) that are larger than both of them and which prove that they are meant to be together.

To accommodate the human need for variety, at the beginning of each showing of the “Hallmark Love Story” (at the time of this writing,  this is the name they are going with), a title card will be shown for ten seconds with a different suggestion on how to rewatch the movie. Cards such as, “Imagine she’s a banker and he runs a zoo. “Imagine she is a suicide prevention counselor and he’s an irreverent comedian” or, “Imagine she’s the president of a big businessy thing and he’s a gardener who smells kind of good when he stinks. Like a man.”

Some have requested that one particular element be added to the plot of The Hallmark Love Story. This element would be that, rather than the female lead being initially repulsed by her eventual love interest, the parents of the mismatched couple are actually the ones who are repulsed by the pairing. Hallmark execs have responded by saying, “That will have to wait for Hallmark 2,” which is a proposed second Hallmark network.

There has been little additional backlash from their core audience who have been instructed for years, via subliminal messages delivered on the Hallmark Channel, to watch internet kitten videos whenever they feel emotional discomfort. Duckling videos are good too.

Chris Churchill teaches communication, media, and theatre at Northeastern Illinois University.  His/book/audiobook, "Ballad of the Small Talker," is available on Amazon, iTunes, and Spotify.