Tag: Candace Cameron Bure

A Faith and Family Hollywood Merger

With the out-of-touch product that Hollywood has been serving up for far too long now, it turns out that a sizable audience has been built up, one that is truly longing for solid faith and family-based entertainment fare.

Well some good news is on the horizon for folks like these and likeminded ones. Two highly successful media outlets, both of which have been providing consumers with faith and family focused content, are teaming up.

Great American Media, parent company of the popular cable channel Great American Family, is merging with PureFlix, a streaming service that offers a variety of faith-based movies, television shows, and documentaries.

The terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, but Great American Media will hold the majority interest in the upcoming combined company.

Great American happens to be the current competitor and business rival of the Hallmark Channel. Interestingly, the person who launched Great American had been at the helm of Hallmark for over a decade.

Bill Abbott, then-CEO of Crown Media, which is the parent company of Hallmark, guided the channel to become the go-to network for made-for-TV Christmas movies.

Abbott left Hallmark in 2020 over an incident involving traditional versus non-traditional values. He went on to launch Great American Media and its two cable TV channels, Great American Family and Great American Living. He also launched a free ad-supported subscription streaming channel called Great American Adventures.

Great American Media’s programming features the aforementioned Christmas films, rom-coms, and classic series that focus on “faith, family and country” themes.

The executive was also able to bring over some of the top former Hallmark Channel stars to his budding network, including Danica McKellar, best known for playing Winnie Cooper in the original “Wonder Years” television show, Lori Loughlin of “Full House” fame, as well as fellow “Full House” star and queen of Hallmark’s Christmas fare Candace Cameron Bure.

PureFlix is a streaming service that is known for its extensive library of faith-oriented and family-friendly content, including the “God’s Not Dead” film franchise and “The Chosen” streaming series.

The streaming service presents a family alternative to Netflix. It currently has a price tag of $7.99 per month and boasts more than a million subscribers in over 190 countries.

In 2020 PureFlix became part of Affirm, Sony Pictures’ faith-based division, which had previously released faith-based films known for modest production budgets and sizable profit margins, including such successful titles as “War Room,” “Heaven Is for Real,” “Overcomer,” and “Miracles from Heaven.”

Abbott will remain as CEO of the newly formed entity created by the two-company merge, and he will report to the board of directors.

The merger highlights the importance of faith-based family-friendly entertainment to Hollywood as a whole.

“This merger will allow us to further our commitment to original, quality content and makes Great American Media and Pure Flix leaders in a large and under-served market,” Abbott stated in the announcement of the transaction.

It is this oft-neglected group of media consumers that stands to benefit the most from the merger. This being said, my prediction is that the joining of forces of the two media outlets is likely to produce an all-out faith-based juggernaut.

It is going to have a larger reach, a larger library of family-friendly material, and a larger comprehensive streaming and cable television experience. And Pure Flix and Great American Media will most likely enhance one another’s content.

Great American Media had previously launched its content on traditional cable networks as opposed to a streaming service. The company’s networks are not only available in 50 million pay TV homes, they are featured in internet TV bundles such as Frndly TV and Fubo, and also on its own free, ad-supported channel, making it one of the fastest-growing television outlets.

After the merger takes place, PureFlix will have given Great American’s networks a streaming home of their own.

At the same time, Great American’s cable channels will have provided a new platform for Pure Flix to showcase content for TV audiences and will also have made available a library of new content that can be shown on Great American Media’s networks.

This is the kind of win-win business deal that makes for a very happy Hollywood ending.

Candace Cameron Bure: A Mom with a Message

Candace Cameron Bure is a highly successful actress, producer, author, and talk show panelist.

Her acting career began at the age of 5 when she appeared in national ads. She soon moved on to television where she had guest spots on major dramas and sitcoms, including “St. Elsewhere,” “Alice,” and “Who’s the Boss?”

She was also a cast member in the film “Some Kind of Wonderful.”

At the age of 11, Candace landed the role that would skyrocket her career. She became one of the co-stars of the 1980s mega-hit television series “Full House.”

Her TV persona D.J. Tanner was the oldest of three sisters in a family in which the mother had tragically passed away and the father was left with the daunting task of raising his children solo. It wouldn’t be long, though, before Dad would have help from two buddies that would step up and assist him in escorting the young ones through life’s travails.

“Full House” would in no way be the end of the Hollywood road for Candace. She would go on to have multiple starring roles on the Hallmark Channel, especially during the Christmas season, as well as playing the main character in the network’s film adaptation of the Aurora Teagarden books.

She had a stint as co-host of the daytime television talk show “The View,” was a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars” where she secured a third-place win, and had a starring role in a comedy-drama TV series called “Make It or Break It.”

In 2016, she played a grown-up version of her D.J. Tanner character in a reboot of the original “Full House,” titled “Fuller House,” which aired on Netflix for five seasons.

Candace is the daughter of a talent manager mother and a gym teacher father. Her brother is former TV sitcom actor and Christian film pioneer Kirk Cameron, who also gained fame with the 1980s TV sitcom “Growing Pains” as well as the end times “Left Behind” film series.

As destiny would have it, her “Full House” co-star Dave Coulier enjoyed playing ice hockey in his spare time. One day he invited Candace to a charity hockey game in which he was participating. He introduced her to a professional NHL player named Valeri Bure, and a romance ensued. The two dated, quickly realized that they were meant to be together, and married shortly thereafter.

After the nuptials, Valeri sent Coulier a hockey stick that was inscribed with the following words: “Dear Dave, thank you for Candace.”

The Bures’s marriage is one of those precious rarities within the celebrity world. Candace credits her Christian faith for their marital bliss. They have been blessed with a daughter and two sons.

Never hesitant in being forthcoming about her fundamental beliefs, Candace recently shared her feelings about the attitudes that she so often encounters within the entertainment industry as a result of her faith-centered worldview. A TikTok video was her chosen mode of expression.

The video is captioned, “When you’re conservative in Hollywood.”

Lip-syncing to a music video, she mouths, “Is it me? Am I the drama? I don’t think I’m the drama. Maybe I am. Am I the villain? I don’t think I’m the villain.”

On another occasion, she used social media to convey her opinion about the mandates that have been imposed on people to make them take coronavirus injections.

“This is not about what I am against. This is what I am FOR,” she wrote on Instagram. The post was accompanied by a graphic that contained the following message: “I’m not anti-V, I’m just pro-medical freedom.”

Candace encouraged viewers to “Read and understand the distinction.” She then posted a timely line that may serve as an inspiration and may potentially give voice to other moms.

“This mama is holding the line and standing up for freedom,” she wrote, adding, “This should not separate us. We can have different opinions and still respect and love one another. Be bigger than that!”

In the Instagram post, she also shared a series of pictures that were captioned with the words “pro-informed consent,” “pro-immune system,” “pro-early intervention,” and “pro-sunlight, exercise, real food and vitamins.”

Candace has received support in the form of “likes” from several celebrities, including her “Full House” dad Bob Saget as well as “The Wonder Years” actress Danica McKellar.

In 2019, Candace talked with “The Pure Flix Podcast” about the origins of her faith.

She began attending church at the age of 12. Going to a house of worship helped her parents reconcile during a rough patch. Simultaneously, it would introduce a young Candace to the Lord. She would ultimately mature into the fullness of her relationship with God.

“I became a Christian by asking God to be my Lord and Savior at 12 years old … but it didn’t become my own until I was in my early 20s,” Candace said.

After she had children of her own, her priorities changed. She started to read the Bible and attend church frequently.

“It was then that I saw myself as a sinner in need of … Jesus’ saving grace,” she explained. “And I never got that before … because I thought I was such a good person.”

She found herself saying a prayer that still directs her faith walk.

“I prayed that day when literally the light bulb went off in my head,” she said. “I prayed, ‘God, please do not let this fire ever go out from under me.’”

Her prayer was no doubt answered and burns ever brightly for all to see.