Hallmark plays the gender card

• NBCU tweaks Hallmark Channel programming
• Looks to appeal more to women
• Looks for more ad revenue and viewers
• Malaysia a big market for NBCU in Asia
  

Regional - As part of NBC Universal's expansion plans for Asia, the company has tweaked its family offering on the Hallmark Channel to be more appealing to women - and advertisers as well.

"It was almost a no-brainer for us," Salauddin Sinnakandu, advertising sales director Asia Pacific Global Networks, for NBCU said.

"Hallmark was already getting good response from women and clients, we thought we could actually do something especially with the library of content... we could change it and make it a profitable business," he said.

Hallmark currently has a slew of women's programming in its offering, including The Starter Wife, Army Wives, and The Oprah Winfrey Show to name a few. And according to the company, its prime time ratings in April versus January 2009 were 50% higher in Malaysia (80% in Singapore) amongst cable / Astro female viewers.

However, Vizeum Malaysia's CEO Andy Miller said there "hasn't been a massive shift" yet from a family oriented channel to a purely women's channel. The Hallmark Channel is still investing in profitable shows like Merlin, which will come back for another season and is not considered a women's programme, and has added The Biggest Loser to its collection of American hit shows.

"We won't be too worried if men start watching," NBCU's Sinnakandu said about The Biggest Loser.

He said the reason behind the move towards a more female audience was a "combination of things" with advertising revenue being "just one."

"It is also to get more viewers. People don't realise we have good content," he said.

From an advertising point of view though, Vizeum's Miller says it "absolutely" makes sense for the channel to differentiate itself more strongly in the marketplace.

"It makes things a little clearer for advertisers," he said.

Hallmark currently uses a combination of the People Meter System and PAX to measure its effectiveness.

Malaysia is an important Asian market for Hallmark. It is only behind Australia and the Philippines in terms of revenue but Sinnakandu said the market still "hasn't really been tapped" by NBCU yet.

"We've been doing that in the last six months and already I've noticed some good increase from our advertising revenue - and good feedback from Astro as well."

Recently, Hallmark rolled out on-air as well as off-air regional marketing activities for Canon to reach its viewers while marketing efforts for The Biggest Loser have just started to ramp up in Malaysia.

NBCU is also currently in talks with Astro to bring its SCI FI channel to Malaysia. The programming is already available in markets such as Singapore and the Philippines.