The Daily Signal - BONUS | Cable TV Channel Celebrates Easter at the Museum of the Bible

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Enjoy this special bonus episode with Bill Abbott of Great American Family. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Good morning and welcome to a special bonus episode of The Daily Signal podcast. I'm Virginia Allen. The Daily Signal's Tyler O'Neill recently had a chance to sit down with the CEO of Great American Media, Bill Abbott. And in light of Good Friday today, because we don't have a regular show this morning or this afternoon, we are really delighted to bring you this conversation with Abbott as he and Tyler discuss the pro-family and pro-American entertainment work of great American media. Stay tuned for Tyler's conversation with Bill Abbott after this. Hi, I'm John Carlo Canaparro. And I'm Zach Smith. And we host Scotus 101. It's a podcast where you'll get a breakdown of top cases in the highest court in the land.

Hear from some of the greatest legal minds. And of course, get a healthy dose of Supreme Court trivia. Want to listen? Find us wherever you get your podcasts or just head to heritage.org slash podcasts. This is Tyler O'Neill, a managing editor at The Daily Signal. I am honored to be joined by Bill Abbott, who's the CEO at Great American Media. Bill, it's great to have you here. Thank you, Tyler. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. So introduce the audience to Great American Family. This, you know, it seems almost like another option besides the Hallmark Channel, but more family-focused? Yeah, you know, the family space is so underserved overall, and we are in it and committed to

providing that quality, faith, and family-friendly content 24-7, not only on our linear platforms, but on our streaming service, Great American Purefix as well. And so what are some of the best, you know, examples of that faith and family content that you have out there that our audience may or may not have heard of. So we have a wonderful show coming up called County Rescue. It's our first original series, and it really traces the character arcs and story of multiple characters who are in an EMS unit and the adventures that they live through day to day, not only as tremendous heroes who serve the community so well, but also as individuals

and how they use faith and family to really support their journey. And it's just a well-crafted series that premieres February 23rd on PureFix and February 26th on Great American Family. And Great American Media has been around for a while, but Great American Family is particularly new. You've also experienced rapid growth in the past year. Would you talk a little bit more about that? Sure. So we launched Great American Family in October of 2021. So, you know, in a world where it's very hard to gain awareness and you've got a lot of different

competition out there. It's harder than ever to get noticed. And so we feel really good about our growth. We were up over 100%. Year over year, 12 consecutive months of the fastest growing linear channel in the business. And our platform on the streaming side is also doing very, very well. We have an original movie coming up that was executive produced by Candice Cameron Bray. That will be an Easter movie, Just in Time, is the name of it, starring Laura Osnus. That is also a wonderful journey of a couple going through real-life issues. But at the same time, you're using faith and family and coming out on the other side in a very, very good place. So where do you see the big opportunities?

Why is this big growth? What is the audience looking for that they're not finding elsewhere? So, you know, Tyler, that's a great question. There's a huge white space. And the entertainment community generally is producing content that is very different and it's not family focused. And some of that, you know, is fine and good. But we feel like for people who want to sit down and be comfortable,

and watch TV or streaming service with their children or with their family or, quite frankly, by themselves and not have their senses assaulted by something on the screen. There's a big need for that, and we're here to fulfill that need. When you talk about having their senses assaulted, I see, you know, I watch a lot of the mainstream content, and I think there's a lot of, you know, negativity, there's a lot of, you know, violence. There are a lot of, I grew up watching movies in TV, that generally had a happy ending, that generally had a wholesome message. I mean, I even think of something like The Patriot and Gladiator, where they're willing to present strong men of character,

and they're not going to shy away from their faith. And those are even more recent. But you have these movies, and I think the trend today is towards something more bleak. you know, in the superhero genre, you're getting this, you know, these multiverses and these endings that aren't really happy, these characters that aren't really flashed out, you know, where does great American family fill some needs that the audience might be feeling? Again, great observations. So the, it's very dark. I have a hard time watching a lot of the content, even from competitors, because it does not have a happy ending a lot of the time.

And, you know, we want to tell real life stories that ultimately are part. positive in nature, though, and really focus on the best of faith, family, and country, and show those in a positive light and show positive endings. And people utilizing, you know, what they have and really relying on the great gifts that we've been given to ultimately come out in a better place. And so I think that is a very big point of difference that we are very much focused on positive characters, role models. You look at even the Cosby show and how, you know, that show was so dynamic in terms of presenting a family that, you know, had problems, but they worked through them and, you know, and they were funny, but at the same time,

there were messages in there that were positive and helpful. So that's all we're trying to do. We want to entertain and provide life is hard enough. So we want to provide that positivity when so much of what we see is negative and dark. Well, and I think the space here is growing. I've seen a lot of growth from Angel Studios. You mentioned Pureflex. You know, where in the constellation of this pro-family content does great American family, you know, set itself apart?

Yeah, so faith and family content has gotten a bad name overall through the years for a variety of different reasons. And we all know what those are. And so we really want to be the high-quality creator of faith and family content that focuses on story and focuses on good production values and good casting and good messaging and doing. it in a way that is more entertaining and more positive than maybe has been done in the past. And so that high quality element is really what we're focused on. And, you know, we wish Angel Studios well. We wish Wonder well. We wish all of, I think, collectively, it's best for this genre to really begin to emerge in a different way. And some of the projects last year that were done

that were so brilliant that, you know, that won awards and have been so successful, I think that's a big positive and we're just part of going along for the ride. Do you have, you know, you talked about Pureflex. What sort of relationships do you have in that space? Would great American family run movies that have been produced by Angel Studios, like his only son, for instance? For sure. And the content world has changed so much and the industry is going through such a change where exclusivity is no longer the model, really. And so, you know, we have great relationships with everyone in the category and genre. I think we're all rooting for each other and where we can be helpful and where we can educate and also entertain. Certainly we'll work with anybody in that genre. And so PureFlix is the

streaming side, great American family. It's available. It's a cable TV network. I'm a millennial, so I've seen me and many of my friends are a cord cutter. But, you know, why choose cable at this time and, you know, has PureFlex been getting the same sort of growth that you've been seeing on the cable side? Yeah, so, you know, linear, while a lot of people have cut the cord, certainly there are still 70 million homes that are part of the cable package. And that's a great way to brand yourselves and a great way to get your name out there. And strategically, as we look at growing awareness, it's much easier to do it when you have a companion linear network as well as a streaming service. And so Pureflex is doing quite well also in terms of subscriber growth and viewership. But that's, as we know, a difficult world that no one in the industry really except for Netflix has figured out.

But we're growing and we're doing well. And both platforms are really meeting that need, which is the reason that the growth is there. And even Netflix is having issues from what I understand in terms of, monetizing streaming. It's an entirely new platform and people are, you know, working out the Kings. Yeah, Netflix has the advantage of being worldwide and so they have a much bigger group of potential subscribers, but you look at all of Disney Plus and WB Discovery. It's very, very challenging to start a streaming service and be successful. So what should our audience be looking out for from Great American Family? You know, you mentioned this Easter movie. You

mentioned the original series you're producing. Are there any other things on the horizon? And is there anything else you'd like to add? So Easter is obviously a big season for us of celebration. And so Good Friday, we will also have the Museum of the Bible, the History of Easter, which is an important partnership that we have with the Museum of the Bible. And we're very proud of showing the passion play on Good Friday, which is just brilliantly and beautifully created. And so, you know, as we look at first quarter, we'll be ending very strong with County Rescue. Candice's produced Christmas movie and then good content on Good Friday. And then from there, you know, we'll continue to create movies and series and nothing to announce at this point. But we have Mario Lopez on board for Christmas 2024, which we're excited

about. And then our regular stars will be back. So the future's bright and we're looking forward to continuing to entertain audiences that are underserved. Great. Well, thank you so much, Bell. Where can, And, you know, obviously it's a cable channel, but where can people follow you, follow the company and the channel and all your work? So great American family.com will provide you with channel numbers and where you can find the channel. And then Great American Purefix or Pureflex.com will be your entry into the streaming service. And we are very anxious for feedback. So when there are feedback forms on both of those sites where we really take very. seriously what all our viewers tell us because we're creating this, again, to fill that white space and to make our viewers feel good about what we're doing. So we'd love your comments

and your thoughts around how we're doing and good, bad, or indifferent. We'd love to know. Thank you so much, Beth. Thank you, Tyler. And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for being with us on this Good Friday. We hope you have a wonderful Easter, a quick reminder, that we do not have a normal interview edition this morning and also do not have top news this afternoon. We will be back on Monday with our interview edition, but we will not have a top news edition again until Tuesday. That is April 2nd. We hope once again that you have a wonderful Easter weekend. And if you have a little extra time over the weekend, take a minute to leave the daily signal a five-star rating

and review. We love hearing your feedback. And be sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on our new shows. Thanks again for being with us today, and happy Easter. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Bowie and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.