Crown Media’s Hallmark Channel held its annual Radio City Music Hall holiday event for Madison Avenue Thursday night. But as advertisers sipped champagne and had their photos taken with the Rockettes, the talk was not of feel-good holiday movies but of Marie versus Martha.
Marie Osmond’s show has replaced Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia shows like “Mad Hungry With Lucinda Scala Quinn” and “Petkeeping With Marc Marrone.”
“Marie” has been airing since October, and Hallmark is thrilled with the results, especially since it owns the show rather than licenses it. “With Martha, we could only have recipes online for a limited period,” said one source.
In “Marie’s” time period at noon, the show’s viewership is up 80 percent among women 25 to 54 years old, and 40 percent in households compared with the MSLO offerings in the slot a year ago.
Of course, the 71-year-old Stewart has moved her presence to digital realms, where Hulu has been building out channels under her brands.
Her only show on TV these days is “Cooking School,” on PBS. But some wonder how Martha will fare in an ocean of do-it-yourself cooking videos.
Stewart told Ad Age recently that she loves technology. “I’m constantly using my three handheld devices/smartphones to talk, look up information and tweet,” she told the magazine. “I love social media because I can get great, instant feedback and stay in touch with a broad audience.” Though perhaps not quite as broad as television’s. –Claire Atkinson
Sugar beat
Are they for real — making money by selling candy without any junk in it? Gisele Bundchen, and hubby Tom Brady, along with Matt Damon and John Legend, are sweet on Unreal, a new company making candy with less sugar and no artificial flavors, and that uses sustainably sourced ingredients.
Even the color is of natural origin, coming from plants such as beets and red cabbage.
In the company’s YouTube video, while making mint tea in her kitchen in body-hugging jeans, Bundchen reminds us that “everything from the Earth is best, isn’t it” and goes on to exclaim, “I love it!”
The candy just launched in New York at CVS, Target and Staples, as part of a 30,000-store nationwide rollout for Unreal, which is based in Boston.
The company’s first five candies, including chocolate-covered nougat and peanut-butter cups, will compete head to head with the likes of M&M’s and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
The price is right: from 89 cents to $1.29 for individual bars and $4.99 for family-size bags.
But analysts say Unreal really can’t compete, nor do they think it intends to.
“Forty percent of all Americans eat candy at least once in a two-week period. That’s grandma, babies, everyone,” said Harry Balzer, chief industry analyst at the NPD Group, who has studied the eating patterns of Americans for 35 years.
“People who like candy will try it. Not all will accept it, but a few will, and that’s certainly a billion-dollar business,” Balzer says, adding you can’t get rid of sugar, “not in our lifetime.” –Julie Earle-Levine
News of the galaxy
Disney may be buying the studio behind “Star Wars,” but its $4.05 billion deal for Lucasfilm apparently doesn’t include rights to the six existing “Star Wars” films.
Those belong to Fox, and the head of that studio’s film division doesn’t seem to have any plans to give them up.
Fox reportedly has theatrical, non-theatrical and home-video rights to five of the original films until 2020, and distribution rights to the original “Star Wars,” now known as “Episode IV — A New Hope,” in perpetuity.
Fox Filmed Entertainment CEO Jim Gianopulos reminded On the Money of this arrangement at last week’s Museum of the Moving Image Salute to Hugh Jackman, saying of the original “Star Wars,” “We own [it] forever.”
But Gianopulos did leave open the possibility of some sort of working relationship with Disney, which also owns “X-Men” home Marvel.
“I think [‘Star Wars’] is a franchise that lives as a whole, so there will always be every reason to be compatible and cooperative and work together,” he said.
So, fans may have reason to hope for a comprehensive box set or big-screen movie marathon to coincide with Disney’s planned new “Star Wars” films.
Fox is owned by News Corp., which also owns The Post. –Hilary Lewis