Hallmark and Lifetime lean into niches to keep Christmas movies fresh

Whether you love them or loathe them, television Christmas movies are a holiday season staple. The romance, the snowy landscapes, the perfectly decorated homes and the familiar stories provide millions of viewers with comfort and joy in December (and even November for some with a looser definition of the holiday season).

Of course, some of that comforting familiarity comes from the conventions that are now expected in a network Christmas movie — for example, the idea of reconnecting with a high school sweetheart, or the presence of an older, bearded gentleman who may or may not be Santa Claus.

So when Hallmark and Lifetime movies start incorporating things like pickleball and NFL players into their slates, it’s enough to turn some heads.

Lifetime’s “A Pickleball Christmas” (premiering Saturday) and Hallmark’s “Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story” (streaming now on Hallmark+) each provide that fresh hook into a Christmas tale, yet romance and the holiday spirit remain at their cores.

Cable television movies are able to capitalize on trendy sports like pickleball or buzzy teams like the Bills because of the breakneck pace at which they’re produced. Tapping into more niche scenarios, hobbies and sports teams allows the networks to invite new audiences in, while keeping their loyal viewers satisfied with a break in formula.

The idea for “A Pickleball Christmas” was born out of a South Pasadena pickleball club. Sami Ponoroff, senior manager of programming for Lifetime, is an avid player and a member of a club called iPickle. She mentioned the idea of a pickleball holiday movie to a pro instructor there, Blake Rutledge. Lucky for them, Rutledge is also a writer who had been working on a pickleball-related script.

From there, the two dove into development. It was “kismet” that they happened to meet through the sport at the center of the movie, Ponoroff said. When Ponoroff initially brought the idea up to the movie’s eventual executive producer, Karen Glass, her first thought said it all: “Of course, there has to be a pickleball Christmas movie.”

While there are mentions of dinking and pickleball kitchen rules in the movie, you don’t need to be familiar with the sport or its specifics to appreciate the story. Ponoroff credits Rutledge with creating a balance between giving pickleball fanatics what they want while not isolating non-players. Since he teaches newcomers, he knows how to introduce people to the sport well, she said.

The same is true of “Holiday Touchdown.” While members of the Bills Mafia, as the team’s fan base is called, will appreciate the shots from Highmark Stadium and the many cameos from both current and former players and other Bills figures, even viewers who root for rival teams (or no team at all) might find something they like.

Samantha DiPippo, Hallmark’s senior vice president of programming, joked that there was a secret recipe to a Hallmark Christmas movie, one that she couldn’t reveal, but the key to a Hallmark movie is the root of romance. Referencing “Adventures in Love & Birding,” a movie from earlier this year that also plays to the niche hobby of birding, she said the basis is “the story just getting them through, right? That’s how we’re finding these two people in this movie fall in love.”

“Holiday Touchdown” is the second movie to come out of Hallmark’s partnership with the NFL — last year’s “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story” was the first, which “kind of tapped into some crazy zeitgeist moment last year,” DiPippo said, referring to the frenzy over the relationship between Taylor Swift and Chiefs player Travis Kelce. Kelce’s mother, Donna, even made a cameo in the movie.

But Hallmark’s NFL connection is based on far more than buzzy relationships. DiPippo said about 75% of Hallmark’s audience also watches NFL games.

“People watch with the same passion, whether they’re rooting on their team or watching a Hallmark movie, and so we wanted to tap into that and make something that feels truly bespoke for our Hallmark viewers, but also NFL fans,” she said.

The writers and team behind the movie traveled to Buffalo early in the production process and “rooted ourselves in all things Orchard Park and Buffalo and East Aurora to really understand what the fandom is up there,” DiPippo said. The Bills’ strong season this year has been “pretty fortuitous,” she added. “Maybe that’s the Hallmark Christmas magic, right? Get a movie and let’s go to the playoffs.”

Lifelong Bills fans Gabe (Matthew Daddario) and Morgan (Holland Roden) find love in Buffalo at Christmas.

(David Scott Holloway / Hallmark Media)

Approaching holiday slates with unique angles appears to be working for the networks. Hallmark holiday movies have reached 24 million people so far this season and Lifetime saw more than 23 million people tune in last year, according to data from Nielsen provided by the respective networks to The Times.

“We have a more, maybe, niche focus — even though it’s the fastest-growing sport in the U.S., it’s more of a niche focus — but that becomes the hook that makes the story itself feel fresh,” Ponoroff said. “There’s obviously going to be a romance in it that might feel familiar, but the world itself is new, and that blending of novelty and authenticity is what our audiences are responding to and coming to us for. Feeling like their worlds, their community, what they’re really engaged in is being represented on screen.”

While Ponoroff said she doesn’t see any signs of pickleball’s popularity slowing down anytime soon, and Bills fans will always be around, Glass emphasized how the speedy production works in their favor in this regard too. “A Pickleball Christmas” will land with audiences just a few months after Apple TV announced it was adding a pickleball comedy, “The Dink,” from Josh Greenbaum and Ben Stiller to its upcoming slate.

“You have an idea, and you can be in production in a month,” she said. “It’s a little bit easier in the TV movie space to connect to trends because the process is so much faster.”

Having a sharp eye for what trend people will connect to is just part of the job, Ponoroff said. “You have a hunch, you have a gut feeling, you sort of go down a rabbit hole,” she said, “and you hope that it works.”

She and Glass said they’re already been kicking around a new idea for a mahjong-themed holiday movie, and DiPippo similarly said planning is well underway for Christmas 2026, including a movie shot at Disney World.

“What’s been so great is that our team is so quick to pivot when we need to, and if we have to jump on a moment, we can do that too,” DiPippo said. “They are literally magical elves and they make this happen.”