Fans of Hallmark Channel’s Good Witch are doing all they can to save their favorite TV show. Six months after the network announced it was canceling the series, fans are circulating petitions, writing letters, and posting messages to social media.
“Being global, we are on social media 24/7 posting and trying to communicate to get our message out to everyone on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,” said Lisa Gurksy-Choi, a fan from Michigan, told Monsters & Critics exclusively.
Goodies from as far abroad as Spain, Brazil, and France have been tweeting in support of the series and sharing photos, quotes, and messages on Instagram and Facebook.
“I joined the campaign because I love the show,” said Melanie Warner, a fan from the UK. “When Hallmark canceled, despite the uplifting connection with fans throughout lockdown, I was devastated.”
The campaign to get Good Witch back on the air has shifted from getting Hallmark executives to rethink their decision to getting a different network, or even a streaming platform such as Netflix, to take over production.
Fans hope to get Good Witch back on a new network
Hallmark announced in July that it was canceling the program, which had its start in 2008 as a series of films about a mysterious woman named Cassie Nightingale who moves to a small town. The network debuted the TV series in 2015. When it announced in July 2021 that the show was being canceled, there were only three episodes left to Season 7. Hallmark executives said the show had run its course.
“Good Witch has enchanted viewers for over a decade,” said Randy Pope, Hallmark’s senior vice president of programming and development. “We…extend our gratitude and thanks to the entire cast and crew for their dedication and hard work.”
Fans said they felt blindsided by the decision and immediately began organizing to get the show back on the air. In addition to starting petitions on change.org, they began writing to Hallmark executives and tweeting in support of the show.
They were encouraged when Manifest, an NBC series that was canceled in June, was picked up in August by Netflix for a final season. They began directing their tweets to the streaming service, as well as to a new network started by the man who was in charge at Hallmark when Good Witch first started.
GAC Family is run by Crown Media’s former CEO Bill Abbott, who left the company in early 2020 following a controversy with an ad that ran on Hallmark for a wedding registry site that featured two women kissing.
In June 2021, he announced he had partnered with Dallas-based Hicks Equity Partners LLC to buy two cable networks in a deal Bloomberg valued at $90 million.
GAC Family began broadcasting in September, and soon after announced it had taken over production of a Hallmark series. In December, GAC Family debuted the first two episodes of a second season of When Hope Calls, a spinoff of Hallmark’s When Calls the Heart.
Good Witch fans send tweets and Christmas cards to TV bosses
The leaders of the Save Good Witch campaign are hopeful that Abbott will take a chance on another Hallmark favorite.
A Twitter campaign that started in July to save the series is still going strong. Goodies share a steady stream of posts about the show, with nearly everyone in the group tweeting during the show’s old Sunday evening time slot.
In December, fans sent Christmas cards to Abbott, congratulating him on his new network and asking him to consider producing Good Witch. Many of the fans received handwritten responses from the executive, according to Gursky-Choi.
There has been no comment from GAC Family as to whether it plans on picking up the series. Right now, the network is promoting its original movies. Over the holiday season, the network released 12 new films, and it has already released one, The Winter Palace, this year. It has signed deals with Hallmark favorites Danica McKellar, Trevor Donovan, and Jen Lilley to create even more movies.
Catarina Duarte of Brazil says Good Witch would be a perfect fit for GAC Family.
“Good Witch is a high-quality program,” she said. “This series deserves to continue. We miss it so much.”
Loved good witch, of course all good shows are taken off. Hallmark also took off home and family in the morning. Wish both would come back on.
As much as I liked good witch, I’ve moved on and others need to too. Time to deal with reality and real issues.