TV Q&A: How did Hallmark Channel make Christmas movies in a pandemic?

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review.

Q: How does Hallmark Channel make about 40 new Christmas movies during a pandemic? Were some movies made prior to March 2020?

- Elaine via email

Rob: Just one was filmed in January and the rest were shot in late summer and into the fall this year on an accelerated, later-than usual schedule due to the pandemic.

Many of Hallmark’s Christmas movies film in Canada, which has done a better job of weathering the covid-19 storm so production kicked off there earlier in the summer than in the U.S.

Like American TV shows that have resumed production – “The Conners,” “This is Us,” “S.W.A.T.” – the Hallmark movies are following covid-19 safety protocols that have become standard on film and TV productions.

The first new 2020 Hallmark Channel Christmas movie, “Jingle Bell Bride,” premieres at 8 p.m. Oct. 24.

Q: WGN America’s “NewsNation” has been on the air for more than a month now. In that timespan, what is their ratings compared to some of the cable news networks they are competing against, like CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, etc?

-Chad via email

Rob: Based on the reporting of Chicago’s Robert Feder, it doesn’t sound like “NewsNation” is doing well relative to the veteran news channels or WGN America’s previous lineup of scripted acquisitions.

Feder reported “NewsNation” premiered to a modest 116,000 average viewers during its three-hour block compared to 3.6 million viewers for Fox News Channel, 2.2 million for MSNBC and 1.7 million average CNN viewers during prime time in August.

Overall audience for WGN America was down an average of 50 percent for the same time period in 2019.

In a follow-up report on Sept. 10, Feder said “NewsNation” averaged fewer than 100,000 viewers nationally each night.

Q: I’ve been frustrated hearing TV journalists who should know better (Andrea Mitchell of NBC News among them) misidentifying the spot where President Trump staged his photo op on his return to the White House from Walter Reed Hospital as the “Truman Balcony.” (It’s not—the Truman Balcony is one floor above the spot where the president stood on the South Portico of the White House.)

Newspapers diligently solicit readers to submit corrections to factual errors, and they publish them a day or two later to correct the record. Is there any corresponding fact-correction operation for TV news?

-Mark, Squirrel Hill

Rob: Sometimes you will hear a TV news anchor read a correction within a newscast, although I tend to see that more with local news than national news. Also, corrections on TV tend to be about something potentially more controversial or a more impactful mistake than simply getting the name of a balcony wrong.

Q: I’ve noticed that Jim Gaffigan is no longer doing his editorials on “CBS Sunday Morning.” Do you know if he was let go after his tirade on Twitter about President Trump? Thank you.

- Kimerle via Twitter

Rob: The lineups for the Sept. 27 and Oct. 4 installments of “CBS Sunday Morning” were changed significantly shortly before air time due to breaking news. Gaffigan was scheduled to have a segment in the Oct. 11 broadcast but that was again pre-empted due to breaking news.