Tag: Lori Loughlin

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.

College Admission Scandals Imitate TV Scripts

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The admissions scandal that recently hit some of the nation’s most prestigious colleges and universities has resulted in the largest prosecution of an alleged scheme to influence higher education admission decisions made at top tier institutions.

Approximately 50 people have been caught up in the investigation, including the organizer of the alleged scheme, coaches and testing administrators who were purportedly bribed, and wealthy parents of admission seeking students.

The ongoing investigation is named “Operation Varsity Blues,” a title that was also used for a 1999 cult movie starring James Van Der Beek, Jon Voight, Paul Walker, Ron Lester, and Scott Caan. The film’s plot features a small town football team in a sports crazed Texas community, where players deal with teenage angst while coping with an obsessive coach played by Voight.

Van Der Beek portrays a backup quarterback who gains the starting position when the first string QB is injured. Much to the chagrin of Van Der Beek’s character’s father, he wants to attend an Ivy League school.

“Varsity Blues” is best known for a scene in which the quarterback son shouts to his football obsessed father the following words: “I don’t want your life!”

The actor recently referenced the famous film quote in a Twitter post about the breaking news of the college admissions scandal.

“If only there was a succinct turn of phrase these kids could have used to inform their parents they were not desirous of their life path,” Van Der Beek posted.

When prosecutors and investigators used the title of a movie as a name for their investigation, they may not have fully realized the bizarre “life imitates art” connections, which the facts presented with respect to the two most famous defendants involved in the case, actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Laughlin.

The allegations in the indictment against Huffman are remarkably similar to a plot line in an episode of the television show in which Huffman starred, “Desperate Housewives.” In the fifth episode of the first season of the ABC television series, Huffman’s character and her fictitious husband contribute money to an elite private school in order to gain admission for their children.

“A generous donation will ensure our kids beat ’em out,” Huffman’s character explains to her spouse.

When the husband asks about the requisite amount, Huffman’s character replies, “$15,000.”

Ironically, the amount of $15,000 is the exact sum that Huffman is alleged to have paid in the form of a charitable donation to facilitate a higher score on her real life daughter’s standardized test. The scheme involved an alleged bribe to a proctor at a testing center who would then modify the daughter’s answers in order to raise her final score.

Meanwhile Loughlin, who starred in the television series “Full House,” appeared in one episode that had a plot line, which would end up foreshadowing future trouble with legal authorities. In episode fifteen of season six, which incidentally also aired on ABC, Loughlin’s character’s husband Jesse, played by John Stamos, attempts to prevaricate in order to obtain admission to a prestigious pre-school for their fictitious twin sons. In a conversation with Joey, portrayed by David Coulier. Jesse reveals his plans to lie in order to gain access to the school for his boys.

“I’m their father,” Jesse says. “If I don’t lie for them, who will?”

Jesse plots to misrepresent his profession as that of a diplomat and to boast of his toddler sons’ abilities to speak foreign languages and play various musical instruments.

Loughlin’s character puts a stop to Jesse’s plans and helps guide the family to the realization that an elite pre-school may not be the best thing for their children.

Loughlin’s character says to Jesse, “I know you want what’s best for them, but maybe the fast track isn’t it,” adding that the two boys are “normal, healthy kids and whatever track they’re on, they seem to be doing OK.”

Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, Loughlin’s real life fashion designer husband and creator of the Mossimo clothing line, were accused in the indictment of paying $500,000 disguised as a charitable donation, so that a university admissions committee would be led to believe that their two daughters would be joining the women’s rowing team at the school, when in reality neither had ever received training or participated in the sport.