Candace Cameron Bure Responds to Fan: ‘Why Did You Leave Hallmark?’

Heavy/Getty Actress Candace Cameron Bure

Two years after Candace Cameron Bure shocked fans by parting ways with Hallmark Media to sign with fledgling cable network Great American Family, many fans are still stumped by her decision.

Hallmark Channel was the number one entertainment cable network in 2023, per Nielsen. Great American Family has struggled to break through in the ratings since former Hallmark Media CEO Bill Abbott launched the channel in 2021.

On May 28, 2024, as Bure conducted an impromptu Q&A with fans in her Instagram Stories, she responded to one who asked, “Why did you leave Hallmark?”

Candace Cameron Bure Says She’s ‘Very Proud’ of Her Work at Hallmark

HallmarkCandace Cameron Bure posted a photo from her 2020 Hallmark “Countdown to Christmas” promotion in her response to a fan about why she left the network.

In her Instagram Stories, Bure responded to the question about her leaving Hallmark by typing her answer over a photo from a shoot she did with the network in 2020 to promote its “Countdown to Christmas” movie lineup.

Over the photo, she wrote, “It wasn’t so much about leaving as it was about an opportunity to grow a new network that puts faith and family at the forefront of its content.”

Bure continued, “I’m very proud of the work I did at Hallmark for 15 years and love all my friends there 🥰”

As part of her deal in April 2022, Bure was named the network’s Chief Content Officer in addition to one of its leading stars.

In light of this, she added in her Instagram response, “I’m more than an actor. Growth in my company as well as my achievements in business is extremely important for me.”

Several months after she signed with Great American Family, Bure told Variety, “It just so happened that my contract was expiring when Great American Family started up. So we did not start having those discussions until we were well into negotiations with Hallmark Channel for renewing. And as every business person knows, you’ve got to do what’s right for contracts. It didn’t work out with Hallmark and so we started talking to Bill.”

In January, Bure told CrossWalks that Great American Family’s willingness to talk about Christianity in its movies has been particularly important to her, saying that the network’s focus on “faith, family, and country” is “what sets us apart.”

“So you’ll see that not every movie that we have talked about faith in a super-prominent way, but there are mentions of it,” she told the outlet. “And unlike many other movies out there that will always focus on all the other aspects and the commercial aspects of Christmas — we definitely have that in our movies — we will bring you back to prayer before meal times or talking about that Jesus is the reason for the season.”

Great American Family is Slowly Growing, But Still Far Behind Hallmark in Ratings

Great American Family has touted itself as being the “fastest-growing” cable network, increasing its “total-viewer ratings” by 76 percent in 2023, per NextTV. But the percentage growth hasn’t translated to competitive ratings. As of May 26, 2024, according to ratings tracker USTVDB, Great American Family was the 56th most popular TV network, watched by a total of 136,000 people during primetime.

Even its Christmas programming in 2023 struggled, according to Decider, which reported that Bure’s big holiday movie of the year — “My Christmas Hero” — drew 371,000 live viewers during its premiere on November 24, which is nearly 100,000 less than her first Christmas movie for the network attracted.

Comparatively, Hallmark’s reigning “Queen of Christmas,” Lacey Chabert, starred in “A Merry Scottish Christmas,” which drew 3.33 million viewers on November 18, beating out every news program on cable television the week of its November release, according to Forbes.

Despite slow ratings growth, Great American Family has lured other Hallmark alum to sign exclusive deals, including Danica McKellar, Jen Lilley, Trevor Donavan, and most recently, Cameron Mathison and Carlos and Alexa PenaVega. 

Only a handful of actors have appeared in movies on both networks simultaneously. Frequent Hallmark actress Rhiannon Fish will appear on Great American Family during the 2024 holiday season in “A Prince In Paradise 2: A Royal Proposal,” Daniel Lissing — who has appeared in multiple Great American Family movies — has filmed a new Hallmark Christmas movie with his former “When Calls The Heart” co-star Erin Krakow, and Hallmark regular Jodie Sweetin has expressed her disappointment over two independent films she made being sold to and aired on Great American Family.

Bure, meanwhile, has been at the center of criticism over Great American Family’s lack of diversity, especially after she told the Wall Street Journal in late 2022 that she expected her new network to focus on “traditional marriage” rather than feature LGBTQ+ couples, as Hallmark and other networks sometimes do.