Heavy/Getty Breaking news at Hallmark Channel
Three years after taking the helm at Hallmark Media and ushering Hallmark Channel and its sister networks into a new era of greater creativity and diversity, president and CEO Wonya Lucas has announced she’s stepping down at the end of the year.
In a surprise announcement on August 8, 2023, Hallmark Media said Lucas will continue to serve as an advisor by remaining on the Hallmark Media Board of Directors “where her experiences and insight will help shape the strategic direction of the business.”
Lucas took over Hallmark Media in 2020 after longtime CEO Bill Abbott parted ways with the company following a public relations mess in which Hallmark Channel pulled four Zola commercials off the air because they featured a same-sex wedding. Mike Perry, president and CEO of the networks’ parent company, Hallmark Cards Inc., issued an apology at the time and reinstated the ads, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and Abbott was gone soon after.
Abbott has since launched a cable network meant to compete with Hallmark, Great American Family, while Lucas, who’s been highly respected by many on her leadership team and among Hallmark’s biggest stars, set out to diversify the talent and stories told on the company’s three TV networks — Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, and Hallmark Drama.
Wonya Lucas & Hallmark Issue Statements About Her Surprise Departure
GettyHallmark Media President and CEO Wonya Lucas and Hallmark star Holly Robinson Peete in April 2023.
In the statement issued by Hallmark, Lucas was quoted as saying, “I am honored to have led this company and am tremendously proud of the progress we’ve made by creating an evolved entertainment experience that inspires meaningful, emotionally connected moments for our audiences.”
She continued, “My passion for the Hallmark brand has grown in deeply rewarding ways and will remain paramount as I continue to help guide Hallmark Media’s future in a more strategically focused capacity.”
Perry, whom Lucas reports to, will work closely with Lucas and the Hallmark Media executive leadership team leading day-to-day operations while completing “the process of Lucas’ transition.” It’s not clear if Perry will step into the role permanently.
In an interview with Broadcasting & Cable on August 7, Perry had only positive feedback about Lucas’ work over the past three years. Upon hiring her to take the helm, he said, the first priority “was really about broadening the content and the stories that we tell here, and making sure that we did that in a more diverse and inclusive way. I think both of us feel very good about that.”
Their other goals, he said, included building a strong management team and developing “new commercial pathways” beyond regular TV, which have been achieved in deals with Peacock, Hulu, and YouTube TV as well as the launch of streaming service Hallmark Movies Now.
“To her credit, it’s like check, check, check and check on all the things that we wanted to do,” Perry told the outlet.
Lucas, who was hired at the height of the COVID pandemic, is a native of Atlanta and worked remotely for part of her tenure at Hallmark. She told the Wall Street Journal in December that she was preparing to relocate to Hallmark Media’s headquarters in Los Angeles in 2023.
Neither Lucas nor Perry gave a reason for the shakeup. Hallmark just reported a successful “Christmas in July” promotion, during which Hallmark Channel was the most-watched entertainment cable network throughout the entire month of July.
Wonya Lucas Has Been a Highly Respected Leader at Hallmark
GettySVP development at Hallmark Media Samantha DiPippo, President and CEO Wonya Lucas, and Executive Vice President of programming Lisa Hamilton Daly during the 2023 “Countdown to Christmas” kickoff
Lucas has not only made a big impact on Hallmark’s direction, but also on the people she works with, who have often talked about how much they like her and respect her decisions, including Executive Vice President of Programming Lisa Hamilton Daly, a former Netflix executive who joined Hallmark in the fall of 2021.
“I think she’s very committed to drawing in a new audience and figuring this out,” Daly told CNBC in February. “I came here for Wonya because she shared her vision of things with me, and I said, ‘Yes, I am signing on for that.'”
In June, Hallmark star Andrew Walker had only glowing things to say about Lucas after spending time with executives and his fellow actors during a day at Hallmark headquarters in Kansas City.
“(Wonya) reminds me very much of Lacey Chabert’s personality a little bit,” Walker told Heavy at the time. “She’s like an angel walking Earth. She’s just such a beautiful spirit. This woman is unbelievable. When you’re around her, her personality is infectious. It’s like, you’re just captivated. She’s so kind.”
Interestingly, Walker shared that when Lucas spoke to the group about her work at Hallmark, she revealed that six months prior, some of her “peers” at the company said they could tell she’d figured out the magic of the Hallmark community.
Walker explained, “She goes…’They said they saw how something just clicked with me. And they said, ‘Wonya, you get it! You understand now why we call it a family.'”
In its announcement, Hallmark praised Lucas’ many accomplishments at Hallmark, saying that she “helped to build a more solid foundation for the business through broadened storytelling with more diverse and inclusive storylines and characters.”
The press release also celebrated that “she assembled a seasoned, highly competent, creative and resilient leadership team” and that together, built new distribution channels and launched initiatives like the Make Her Mark Women’s Directing Program with actress and director Ashley Williams.
“Most importantly,” the release reads, “the foundation Lucas built directly aligns with the aspirations and values of the Hallmark brand.”
Before joining Hallmark, Lucas was president and chief executive officer of Public Broadcasting Atlanta, overseeing Atlanta’s NPR and PBS stations, according to IMDb. Before that, she was president and chief executive officer of TV One, becoming only the second African American woman to hold the office of president and chief executive at a cable television network. Lucas previously worked for Discovery Communications, including serving as executive vice president and chief operating officer for Discovery Channel and Science Channel, as well as global chief marketing officer for Discovery, managing marketing on 130 networks in 210 countries.