Fans of the Hallmark series Good Witch are hoping to find a new home for their favorite show. Over the weekend, “Goodies,” as they refer to themselves, began a social media and email campaign to convince former Hallmark exec Bill Abbott to pick up the show for one of his new networks.
Under the hashtag #SaveGoodWitch, fans posted graphics asking Abbott to consider bringing the show back.
“We need the king of Hallmark to save Good Witch,” one graphic read, with a smiling picture of Abbott below.
Tweet like your lives depended on it was the vibe given off by several others.
Good Witch was canceled abruptly in July. Fans were devastated and mounted a campaign to get Hallmark to reconsider its decision.
The network said the series “reached a natural conclusion after a remarkable 13-year run.”
Twitter campaign
Since then, fans have been hitting up Twitter at 9/8c on Sundays, the show’s regular time slot. In addition to tweeting images of their favorite characters and graphics featuring photos from the show, fans have also been tagging Netflix hoping that the company will pick up the show.
They were inspired by fans of the NBC series Manifest, who mounted a similar campaign when the show was canceled in June. On August 28, Netflix announced it would bring the show back for a fourth and final season.
Good Witch fans have not given up hope that Netflix will pick up the show. But they see another possibility now that Abbott is back in television production.
On Friday, Abbott announced that his company, GAC Media, had purchased two cable networks and planned to begin family-friendly content at the end of September.
In a statement released to the press, Good Witch fan Lisa Gursky-Choi congratulated Abbott on his new venture and implored him to consider rebooting the show.
“Good Witch means everything to #goodies, as they are affectionately called because the theme of the show has always been about people being kind to each other,” Gursky-Choi wrote. “Every episode provides a life lesson and gives the audience some good feeling and inspiration.”
She praised Abbott for his work as the head of Crown Media Family Networks.
“Bill was an amazing pioneer on the Hallmark Channel,” she said. “The Hallmark Channel has never been the same since Bill’s departure.”
Abbott left the company in January 2020, following a controversy over the network’s decision to run an ad for a wedding registry site that included two brides kissing. After complaints, Hallmark pulled the ad, only to receive criticism from LGBTQ groups.
Neither Abbott nor the network would comment on his departure. He was replaced as head of Crown Media Family Networks by Wonya Lucas in July 2020.
After leaving Hallmark, Abbott joined forces with Dallas-based Hicks Equity Partners LLC to create GAC Media, which launched in June 2021. Last week, the company announced it had purchased the Great American Country network from Discovery Inc. Bloomberg reported the deal was worth $90 million.
Perfect fit
The company announced it would begin airing family-friendly content on two different networks, GAC Family and GAC Living.
Fans such as Gursky-Choi say that Good Witch would be the perfect fit for the new networks.
“We desperately need this show in a world that seems like nothing makes sense,” she wrote. “We need light, love, comfort, and joy. We need our Good Witch back!”
We all need the Good Witch to return. It makes me feel so good and comfortable like the family shows years and years ago use to do. Too much sex, politics and violence. We need good wholesome shows to watch. Please give it back to us
With a new person at the helm, I fear that Hallmark won’t be the network it once was. They have already broken the mold with some of the storylines they’ve shown, just to appease all the various demographic groups. There should be a network for all kinds of lifestyles but not every network should have all types of lifestyle representations. That’s not freedom of choice, that’s a mandate.
If Good Witch goes to GAC, they will have to discontinue the lesbian story line. My understanding of GAC is that they are getting back to faith and family…the point is to get away from the wokeness of Hallmark Channel and the bullying of people who don’t agree with lifestyles and pressures forces onto the once great viewing.
Really? There are gay people in the world. Get over Woke, please. At least on Good Witch it is done in a tasteful manner, not crude stereotypes. Avoiding shows w gay people does not make them go away, or not be apart of our world. If there is a way to bring it back, let’s do it, not be negative before it even happens. GW is about positivity, not negative. Who need redundant, boring Hallmark? I removed all of their channels after learning GW cancelled. The way they did this seems nasty and underhanded. GW deserves 2nd chance with people in charge of a network who will stay true to purpose of GW message. Not traitorous boring heads of current Hallmark.