Hallmark warns of potential Frndly TV blackout during holiday season
Hallmark warns of potential Frndly TV blackout during holiday season
Hallmark Channel might be blacked out on Frndly TV soon, and is already preparing to help customers find Countdown to Christmas content and more if that happens.
Fall means it’s carriage negotiation season, and the live TV streaming giants like YouTube TV aren’t the only services that are finding themselves in talks with programmers. Frndly TV, which offers a smaller package of family-friendly TV channels and on-demand content starting at less than $10 per month, is in danger of losing one of its programming crown jewels: Hallmark Channel, which is now warning customers that a carriage dispute might force its content off of Frndly.
Key Details:
- Roku’s fault?: Hallmark says that Frndly’s new parent company, Roku, is at fault for the carriage dispute.
- Lots of other options: Plenty of live TV streamers carry the Hallmark Channel.
- Get half off: The Hallmark+ streaming service is offering a 50% discount on an annual subscription.
Hallmark has launched keephallmark.com, a website where customers can hear details of the dispute from the programmer’s point of view, see where else they can stream Hallmark Channel content, and take advantage of a special discount on the Hallmark-owned streaming service Hallmark+.
According to Hallmark, the blame for a possible blackout of its content on Frndly TV should rest with Roku. That company announced it was acquiring Frndly TV in May, and Hallmark explicitly called out Roku for being “unwilling to meaningfully engage on an agreement” to preserve access to the channel on its website.
At risk are Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Mystery, and Hallmark Family, which means the beloved Countdown to Christmas programming event might disappear from Frndly TV. As Hallmark’s website points out, however, these channels are widely available on other live TV streaming services, such as DIRECTV, Fubo, Hulu + Live TV, Philo, Sling TV, and YouTube TV. See which channels are available in each package in the chart below.
| DIRECTV | Frndly TV | Fubo | Hulu | Philo | Sling TV | YouTube TV | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Trial | Free Trial | Free Trial | Free 3-Day Trial | Free Trial | Save with Sling | Free Trial | |||||
| $20.99 | $8.99 | $9.99 | $28.99 | $25 | $19.99 | $29.99 | $45.99 | $45.99 | $64.99 | ||
| Hallmark Channel | + $39 | ✓ | + $59 | - | ✓ | - | - | + $6 | + $6 | + $18 | |
| Hallmark Mystery | + $5 | ✓ | + $59 | + $61 | ✓ | ✓ | - | + $6 | + $6 | + $18 | |
| Hallmark Family | + $5 | ✓ | + $59 | - | ✓ | - | - | + $6 | + $6 | + $18 | |
In addition to live TV streamers, Hallmark has an on-demand streaming service with a huge selection of the content you can find on its linear channels — including Countdown to Christmas titles! For a limited time, Hallmark is offering 50% off an annual subscription to the Hallmark+ streaming service with promo code SAVE50NOW — discounting the price from $80 to $40. That breaks down to less than $3.50 per month, so if you don’t mind paying the whole $40 up front, it’s a great way to watch Hallmark content for the entirety of the next year and never have to deal with threatened blackouts.
The carriage fight between Disney and YouTube will take up plenty of digital column inches this week, but this dispute deserves attention as well. If Hallmark Channel and Frndly TV’s parent company Roku, don’t get things working soon, Frndly stands to lose Hallmark programming just as the Countdown to Christmas is ramping up.
Hallmark+
Hallmark+ is a cable-free subscription service that offers thousands of hours of Hallmark’s signature feel-good programming in the form of movies and ongoing series. Nearly all media found on the service is exclusive to the Hallmark brand, created either specifically for Hallmark+, or pulled from another source such as Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Mystery, or Hallmark Family. The service can be added as a channel to Prime Video.