Interesting news in the Christian filmmaking World. 

Many of you have probably heard back here in May that there was an announcement that Pure Flix was merging with the Great American Media and I just wanted to take a minute to kind of look at what that says and to kind of just give you my few thoughts on what it could mean. What it could not mean.

I don’t have any behind the scenes details. This is just me speculating on this article but I thought we could look at it real quick and just kind of talk about what’s going on.

So this article is from Deadline. Says Sony streaming Outlet Pure Flix, known for God’s Not Dead franchise, is to merge with the Great American Media. The Hallmark Channel Alum Bill Abbott to run combined entity. 

I don’t watch a whole lot of cable and I wasn’t really particularly familiar with the Great American Media, what their content was, so I had to go over to their website. It’s not really my kind of content. Rom-coms, a lot of Christmas movies, some old school TV shows like Colombo. Very kind of hallmarkish-feeling shows. Which there is nothing wrong with that because it has a big audience for that. 

Great American Media operates cable Network’s Great American family and Great American living as well as the fast Channel Great American Adventures. They got a lot going on. 

Pureflix, known for faith-based franchises like God’sNot Dead, was acquired by Sony pictures in December 2020 and at the time of the deal it had 1 million subscribers. I didn’t know how many subscribers that Pure Flix has and of course this is an article. I don’t know where they’re getting their information but one million subscribers is a decent size. It’s not anywhere near Netflix. You know it’s still a niche audience but one million is a big deal right now.

PureFlix is billed monthly or you could do it yearly at six dollars a month. Six million, that’s what?…  is that 72 million dollars a year? Just from subscribers for Pure Flix.So again, decent little bit of cash there.

Bill Abbott the former long time top executive at the Hallmark Channel’s media parent who has been running Great America Media will oversee the combined entity. So I guess he’s over the top of it somehow. Programming features original Christmas movies, rom-coms, and classic series centered on faith family and Country – in the company’s description. In a media environment where programming and distribution business models are in a constant state of flux this agreement provides a rare opportunity to maximize our potential with the expertise, market knowledge, and content creation capabilities of a world-class partner like Sony Pictures.

Many people don’t even know that Sony owns Pure Flix.

He says this merger will allow us to further our commitment to original quality content and makes Great AmericanMedia and pPure Flix leaders in a large and underserved market. 

So I’ve got a couple things that are already streaming on Pure Flix myself. I’ve got a few different series there. I’ve been very interested to see how Pure Flix is developing and, wondering where they’re going to be headed. They were already very heavy on the rom-coms, Christmas movies. They had their own Hallmark field. Their audience has been kind of Niche and so they definitely have been doing really good job making content that their audience was going to like and engage with, but it’s not really my kind of content.

I’m really super interested in making content that my teenage sons would be interested in watching as well and I know Pure Flix has a handful of of shows and movies that kind of go toward that direction. 

You know looking at this deal just from what it says, it looks like they’re kind of doubling down. Like you have two companies that make very similar  content but they’re both kind of in different zones. Pure Flix which has its own streaming subscription service, and the other is a lot more cable channels based and they’re kind of combining I guess all their content together which will make them, I’m sure bigger and reach a lot more people.

But I don’t know if this means that there’s going to be more content that’s, you know, new or that they’re going to actually be looking at expanding their Market to engage males or

teenagers, or if they’re just gonna double down here and say, ‘you know we’ve got the Hallmark thing and the Christmas movie thing in the bag. People love us for that and so we’re gonna double down and that’s what we’re doing.’ If that’s the case that’s kind of disappointing

because it’s not really my thing.

But then, you know come Christmas time I’m sure my mother-in-law will probably have

this on. So if that’s what they’re doing then then they’re gonna win for sure.

They say ‘faith, family and country’…. are they actually talking about the ‘whole’ family? Like the dads and the kids too? Or is it more just the ‘Moms’ Christmas time type thing?

I don’t know. I guess we’ll all have to see what comes next. 

So that’s it I’m out