William J. "Bill" Abbott is the former President and CEO of Crown Media Family Networks, the parent of Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. His career in the entertainment industry has focused on family television for over 25 years. He piloted "Countdown to the Holidays", Hallmark’s signature marketing and programming initiative, including its “Countdown to Christmas” campaign. Since becoming CEO in 2009, he spearheaded the addition of scripted series for primetime, including Cedar Cove and When Calls the Heart, as well as the launch of the yearly special Kitten Bowl. Abbott has been featured in the Cablefax 100 list of top power players every year from 2009 through 2016. He also received Diversity Partner Award from the T. Howard Foundation in 2016. He is married with four children; one child is from his previous marriage.
Crown Media
Abbott joined Crown Media Family Networks in 2000 as its executive vice president of advertising sales. There, he led the national advertising sales operations for the networks, internet services and digital network development and oversaw its offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta. In 2004, he oversaw the launch of Hallmark Movie Channel. During his tenure as EVP of advertising sales, Hallmark Channel’s annual advertising revenue increased from $10.2 million to $223 million. TV Week credited Abbott as "one of the smartest, yet unsung, ad sales executives in the TV business."
As CEO
Abbott succeeded Henry Schleiff as President and CEO of Crown Media, June 1, 2009. In his first year, Abbott made a deal with Martha Stewart to create a lifestyle block on Hallmark Channel that premiered in March 2010. The following year, Abbott launched Hallmark's "Countdown to Christmas" campaign, and in 2015 featured Mariah Carey in her directorial debut in A Christmas Melody, with a slate of 17 new original movies, and a celebrity lineup including "Lori Loughlin, Dermot Mulroney, Danica McKellar, Candace Cameron Bure, William Shatner and Christopher Lloyd." He also aimed to produce content that could provide synergy between Hallmark Cards and Hallmark Media Networks, with an eye towards the channel's first scripted series. In 2012, he revived the daytime Emmy-nominated lifestyle program The Home and Family Show. Abbott also diversified and expanded the network's content to include primetime scripted series including Cedar Cove and When Calls the Heart, an honoree of the 2016 Christopher Spirit Award. Separately, he oversaw the 2014 rebranding of Hallmark Movie Channel to Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, which has grown in ratings and wider distribution. Abbott discovered advantages in Hallmark being independent in that he is better able to work quickly and flexibly, but has criticized The Cable Act of 1992 as creating an uneven playing field. He has found success catering to older demographics compared to other networks by "bucking the trend in the entire business." In January 2020, Abbott stepped down as CEO of Crown Media, a little more than a month after the network apologized for removing advertisements featuring same-sex couples from the air.
