www.OdysseyFamily.com

Programs Formerly Broadcast on Odyssey/Hallmark channels

ALF
Alfred Hitchcock Hour
America's Funniest Home Videos
Banacek
The Beverly Hillbillies
Bewitched
The Big Valley (now seen on Encore Westerns channel)
Bonanza
Diagnosis Murder
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Early Edition
The Equalizer
Facts of Life
Family Ties
Gilligan's Island
Gunsmoke
Happy Days (a spinoff of the movie American Graffiti
Have Gun, Will Travel
Hawaii Five-0
High Chaparral
Hogan's Heroes
The Honeymooners
I Dream of Jeannie
JAG
Judging Amy
Kojak Movies
The Lucy Show
The Magnificent Seven (currently showing on Encore Westerns) Marshal Dillon (a Gunsmoke spinoff with most of the same actors)
McCloud
McMillan and Wife
The Mod Squad
Mork and Mindy
Muppet Show
My Three Sons
Nanny and the Professor
Northern Exposure
Our Miss Brooks
Perry Mason
Phil Silvers Show
Quincy, M.E.
Rawhide
The Rifleman (currently showing on Encore Westerns) Wagon Train
Zoobilee Zoo

Programs for year 2000
SERIES 

ALF 

America! 

Animal Show

Avonlea 

Beauty and the Beast 

Christy 

Donna's Day (archived 2001) www.DonnasDay.com (current website)

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman 

Fraggle Rock

Happy Days

The Innovators

Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years

The Muppet Show (archived 2001) Muppet Show (current page)

My Three Sons 

Odyssey Weekly hosted by Mary Alice Williams of CNN 

Quiet Triumphs hosted by Mary Alice Williams of NBC News 

Rescue 911 hosted by William Shatner

Snowy River: The McGregor Saga 

Sunday Dinner hosted by Mark DeCarlo

Wind At My Back set during the Great Depression

The Young Riders 

SPECIALS 

Come to the Party: Donna's Day Prime Time Special and staudy guide.pdf

Here I Am, Send Me: The Journey of Jonathan Daniels for Civil Rights

The World of Dark Crystal 

Inside the Labyrinth 

Lonesome Dove miniseries

More specials in 2001

MOVIES Alex Haley's Queen, also seen on The Hallmark Channel Animal Farm by George Orwell The Boys Next Door Breathing Lessons starring James Garner Broken Chain Calm at Sunset Canterville Ghost starring Patrick Stewart Captains Courageous Captiva Island Captive Heart: The James Mink Story The Christmas Box The Dark Crystal David Dead Man's Walk (prequel to Lonesome Dove) The Devil's Arithmetic Ellen Foster Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas Ethan Frome The Fire Next Time The Fourth Wise Man Frankenstein based on the famous novel you can read online for free The Gathering The Gathering 2 The Ghost of Dickens Past Glory & Honor Greenstone Gulliver's Travels starring Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen Hamlet study guide for Hamlet and Sherlock Holmes Happy Christmas, Miss King Hidden in America Holiday in Your Heart The Hound of the Baskervilles based on the famous novel (read online now for free) In His Father's Shoes Jacob The Joe Torre Story: Curveballs Along the Way Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (Executive Producer: Francis Ford Coppola) Labyrinth Legend Of Sleepy Hollow (1999) starring Brent Carver as Ichabod Crane Long Road Home Mandela & DeKlerk Mary, Mother of Jesus (Jesus: Christian Bale) Mr. Music The Muppet Movie, and sequels: The Great Muppet Caper Muppets Take Manhattan Muppet Treasure Island A Muppet Christmas Carol A Muppet Family Christmas Muppets From Space The Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All One Against the Wind One Christmas Pack of Lies The Phoenix & the Carpet Princess Stallion Project: ALF Redwood Curtain The Resting Place Roots Sarah, Plain & Tall Sherlock Holmes in Sign of the Four The Summer of Ben Tyler Survive the Savage Sea The Sweetest Gift The Tenth Kingdom (a portal between New York & Grimm's Fairy Tales) Texas Timepiece Titanic see video at Hallmarkchannel.com Tower of the First Born (Peter Weller as adventurer in Sahara) True Women Under the Piano The Vernon Johns Story starring James Earl Jones Voyage of the Unicorn starring Beau Bridges The Winds of War More movies

SPIRITUAL The Baptist Hour Christopher Close-Up Daily Mass / Sunday Mass Faces on Faith Family Times First United Methodist Church of Pasadena, CA Gaither Homecoming Hour Gary McSpadden's Gospel Jubilee George Mann at Pasadena Great Preachers Hashing It Out How Can I Live? In Touch Insight For Living Invitation to Life Jewish Chronicles La Santa Misa (Bilingual Mass) Landmarks of Faith Lawson Live Lifestyle Magazine with Clifton Davis Love Worth Finding Midpoint Miracles, Angels & Afterlife Miracles & Other Wonders Music & the Spoken Word On Main Street Our Family Personally Speaking Primary Focus Quick Study The Real Bottom Line co-sponsored by Trinity Church, Wall Street Real Life with Gerald Mann from Riverbend Church Religions of the World Simple Faith with Dr. Arthur Caliandro Storykeepers Swan's Place 30 Good Minutes Today's Life Choices Voice of Peachtree Winning Walk World Impact by Vocie of Salvation (Note: the above was archived in 2001 and is archived text only, few or no graphics) Current shows & movies on the new Hallmark Channel Today, Hallmark specializes in airing past segments from their parent company's Hallmark Hall of Fame anthology series, which features made-for-television movies and miniseries, most of them from the series' CBS run. Older shows, such as The Waltons, Little House on the Prairie, M*A*S*H, Matlock, Diagnosis Murder, Murder, She Wrote, and Walker, Texas Ranger are rerun many times a day and replaced the religious programming that aired on the channel for over a decade. Other shows, such as the Muppet Show, JAG, Hogan's Heroes, Family Ties, Nanny and the Professor, Gunsmoke, Bewitched, Perry Mason, and Judging Amy, have been seen on the network. Hallmark began airing its own weekday morning show entitled New Morning in 2002 and added a Sunday morning version hosted by Naomi Judd entitled Naomi's New Morning in 2005.

In January 2007, Hallmark Channel dropped the Hallmark crown from its logo, but still uses it in certain places on-air, and in other countries.

The following appeared on Americancatholic.org (April 2000)

Following its recent merger with The Jim Henson Company and Hallmark Entertainment, the Odyssey Channel, an interfaith cable television channel, is emerging as a leader in religious and family programming. Odyssey is owned jointly by Henson and Hallmark Entertainment, by Liberty Media, and by the National Interfaith Cable Coalition, a consortium of over 70 faith groups, including Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Evangelical and Pentecostal traditions. The Odyssey Channel is committed to the communication of family and religious values in its programming.

Media communication costs money. In broadcasting religious programming, the Odyssey Channel operates as a business, much the same as other television networks. Individual production companies create and develop programs to sell to television or cable network companies, who in turn invest in the programs they hope will be successful on air. For primetime network television programming, staying on the air translates to large loyal audiences which advertisers covet.

Think, for example, of Frasier or Friends, two popular, long-running television programs. A large viewing audience brings high Nielsen ratings. (The Los Angeles Times is one newspaper that publishes complete Nielsen ratings in its Calendar section of its print edition every Wednesday. Top 20 ratings can be found in its online edition.) High ratings allow a network to charge more for advertising time. A long-running program, then, contributes to the network's bottom line by attracting advertising. Even a cursory reading of media trade journals such as Variety and the Hollywood Reporter reveals the urgency for network success as the networks acquire and develop new programming.

For some networks, their creative and technical talents, coupled with their ability to find and air popular programming, make success almost inevitable. Others struggle to build audiences for their shows. The Odyssey Channel faces similar challenges. As an interfaith network airing programs developed by faith-based production companies, it too looks to attract and retain a loyal audience. Its recent partnership will strengthen its resources and contribute to its ultimate goal of making faith visible on television.

The effort to make faith visible, of course, traces itself back to Jesus, and indeed to Old Testament times. The Gospels are full of the drama of his life. Jesus walked from town to town. He addressed gathered crowds from a hillside or a boat, even from the cross. He used parables, the literary device common to his time. He spoke to people's real situations, healing the blind and lame, feeding the poor, visiting the alienated, forgiving sinners.

Communicating faith-based values

All television programming, religious or secular, reflects values and beliefs. Those values may stem from the show's creators and writers or could be driven more by network executives dictating program content.

Discuss the values you find in the syndicated show M*A*S*H, for example, or the White House-based The West Wing. (See The Washington Post for an informative article on The West Wing's creator and writer, Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin's premise is that politicians are decent people who are in their jobs for the right reasons.) What are the beliefs of the college-age characters in Felicity? What in life is important to the doctor on Providence? How do her values compare to those that drive the lives of the emergency room physicians on ER?

If you are working in teen or adult discussion groups, create your own development idea for a television program with a religious or value-based theme. Determine first if you want to communicate through stories (fiction) or through documentary-style programming (non-fiction). For the story approach, develop a cast of characters or a story concept. Write a summary of what the show would be all about. Are there particular values or concepts you wish your characters to explore? Look for real-life situations where conflict and disagreement between people exist. This is material for a dramatic (and entertaining) examination of issues.

In your efforts talk about existing shows such as Touched by an Angel, Seventh Heaven or the syndicated Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. What story elements, what characters inspire you to create your own? What jobs, what groups of people, are motivated by ideals, for example? Draft a few sample pages of script, if you wish. Be sure in the process to identify a target market: families, teens, adults 18 to 49, senior citizens. Discuss what networks might serve as a market for your show idea.

You may then want to pitch your program idea to another discussion group representing a network or a target audience. See if you are successful in creating interest. Have you found an effective vehicle for communicating your faith values? Can your "viewers" identify your values from the story ideas you created?

Younger classroom groups or families at home can create a collage illustrating an idea for a television program. Children might also enjoy creating a storyboard to demonstrate their program idea. With ruler and pencil, divide a piece of paper into nine small squares. Then draw scenes and stick figures depicting their basic story on Post-It notes. Stick the notes on the grid page to visualize the story sequence. Switch the notes around until they have a satisfactory story illustration. Encourage the children then to share the story verbally.

For documentary programming, pattern your communication idea after a contemporary program such as Odyssey's Landmarks of Faith, which highlights the origins of faith communities, or PBS's Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. You might want to profile local people who live their faith and values in their daily lives. Also, what famous people (sports figures, entertainers, etc.) can you think of who might qualify for such a profile? Suggestions would include teachers, program leaders, coaches, clergy and rehabilitation counselors. Odyssey's Today's Life Choices: Challenges for our Times, examines contemporary social issues and offers profiles of the people central to these issues. Another program, Defiant Faithful, features one-hour biographies of spiritual leaders.

As with the story approach, draft your ideas and pitch them to another discussion group. Or with younger children, create the collage or the storyboard. Talk about each group's effectiveness in communicating the values you hold important.

Cable television background

The role of cable television continues to grow. The National Cable Television Association offers a history of the cable television industry, as well as information on several videos promoting media literacy for young people. Cable in the Classroom offers free cable programming to over 80,000 public and private schools in the country, through 8,500 local cable companies. The organization also offers home viewers information on family-friendly cable programs.

Further information on Margaret Loesch and her role at the Odyssey Channel can be found in Cable World magazine. See Liberty Media for information on the company that holds a one-third interest in Odyssey.Links for Learners
by Lynn and Bob Gillen


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OdysseyFamily.com Site map from 2001 inc. TV series and movies

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The Wikipedia page for Odyssey/Hallmark can be seen in its entirety at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details)