• by Wayne Friedman , November 23, 2021

Heavy holiday-themed content, especially Christmas-themed movies, has boosted Hallmark Channel to again take a leading share of holiday-themed TV ad impressions, according to iSpot.tv.

Through almost two months of airing (October 1 through November 18), Hallmark pulled in an estimated 4.4 billion impressions from holiday-related TV ad impressions (excluding network promos) -- a leading 10% of industry for just those TV ad impressions. This is up from 8% share a year ago.

Overall TV ad impressions for Hallmark Channel so far this year are significantly higher: 41 billion impressions, up from 34.3 billion a year ago.

After Hallmark, CBS was next (2.3 billion), followed by NBC (2.2 billion), ABC (1.96 billion), and ION Television (1.7 billion), then HGTV (1.3 billion), Fox (1.25 billion), TBS (1.18 billion), and TV Land (1.15 billion).

Research also showed Hallmark Movies & Mysteries came in at 1.1 billion impressions -- adding another 2.8% share to the Crown Media Holdings TV networks.

Walmart and Amazon -- two big retailers -- are the dominant marketers for estimated holiday-themed national TV ad spend -- up significantly, according to iSpot.tv, from a year ago.

So far, Walmart is at $39.8 billion and Amazon, $30 billion. Farther down the list are two other major retailers: Target ($14.4 million) and Macy’s ($13.5 million), followed by Ram Trucks ($13 million); Peloton ($8.8 million); Kohl’s ($8.2 million); Lowe’s ($7.4 million); Starbucks ($6.9 million); and Samsung Mobile ($6.3 million).

A year ago, per iSpot.tv, Peloton spent virtually nothing on national TV holiday-themed advertising.