Former Hallmark Channel head Bill Abbott’s new company GAC Media has reached a distribution deal with Frndly TV, giving cable channels GAC Family and GAC Living more than 400,000 additional streaming subscribers looking for wholesome programming just in time for the start of the all-important holiday season.

Frndly TV is a virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) that focuses on providing wholesome programming at a low price.

Adding GAC Family and GAC Living gives Frndly TV basic subscribers 23 channels, nine more than in February. The price for basic service remains at $5.99 a month. 

“After GAC Media acquired Great American Country and Ride TV, we immediately began discussions about adding these channels to our lineup,” said Michael McKenna, chief programming officer of Frndly TV. “They shared with us their vision of the two channels moving forward. With that vision in mind, we felt the newly branded GAC Family and GAC Living would be a nice fit to our offering. We are very pleased to have these two GAC Media channels become part of the Frndly TV family.”

Frndly subscribers on social media began asking for GAC Family and GAC Living shortly after their family friendly rebrands were announced.

Abbott, backed by Hicks Equity Partners, has been following the successful Hallmark Channel model since acquiring the cable channels in June. This new carriage agreement comes at a key time for GAC. It means that more people will be able to see the expansive slate of holiday movies the companies will present under its Great American Christmas banner. With its focus on yuletide programming, GAC, like Hallmark, will probably see its best ratings and strongest advertising revenues in the fourth quarter.

Also Read: Frndly TV Launching Hallmark Movies Now as Add-On Channel

GAC plans to premiere holiday films every Saturday night beginning Oct. 30 through Christmas. The slate will be heralded in a special premiering this Saturday and running again Oct. 24 hosted by Cameron Mathison and Debbie Matenopoulos, who, not coincidentally, hosted Hallmark Channel’s daytime show Home & Family when Abbott ran the network. 

The new network also made a splash announcing that it will have season two of When Hope Calls. Season one of the series appeared on Hallmark Channel. GAC also announced that Hallmark Channel favorite Lori Loughlin — now notorious because of the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal — will be a guest star in When Hope Calls, playing her character from Hallmark’s When Calls the Heart.

“GAC Family and GAC Living are the perfect fit for Frndly TV, who shares our passion for engaging and entertaining audiences nationwide with positive, family friendly programing,” said Erin McIlvain, chief officer, distribution and content strategy for GAC Media. “We’re thrilled to be launching on the popular service and look forward to providing GAC’s all-new movies, specials and unscripted programming to the Frndly audience.”

GAC Family and GAC Living launched on Sept. 27 as new brands with original programming slates. Under the tagline “Stories Well Told,” GAC Family features family-friendly, holiday-themed movies and series that celebrate American culture, lifestyle and heritage. GAC Living, tagged as “Life Well Lived,” is designed to complement GAC Family as an unscripted companion network celebrating Great American family friendly traditions. 

Upcoming programming on GAC Family already announced includes A Kindhearted Christmas starring Cameron Mathison and Jennie Garth, and Royally Wrapped for Christmas, starring Jen Lilley and Brendan Fehr.

Newsy said a new wave of distribution deals with cable operators have extended its reach to 26 million cable homes, and is now on track to push that number to about 40 million next year.

Newsy, acquired by E.W. Scripps in 2013, said its new traditional MVPD footprint comes way of deals with Comcast, AT&T and Charter Communications, among others.  

Of that group, Newsy said Comcast transitioned approximately 6 million subscribers to Newsy in October, and expects Newsy to reach 10 million Comcast subs by Q4 2018. Scripps, the company pointed out, has also renewed its broadcast television retransmission agreement with Comcast, which now includes its seven Scripps legacy stations, beginning Jan. 1, 2020. 

RELATED: Newsy Nabs First Cable Carriage Deal

Those deals come as Newsy continues to supplement its OTT-focused distribution strategy with one that also centers on cable operators. That added focus on the traditional MVPD sector followed the acquisition of Retirement Living Television’s carriage contracts. Newsy is also carried by OTT TV services such as Sling TV and YouTube TV.

RELATED: Scripps-Owned Newsy Becoming a Cable Channel After RLTV Purchase

“These companies have welcomed Newsy in part because of the terrific traction it has received with millennial audiences on OTT,” Adam Symson, Scripps’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “Given that the vast majority of Americans have cable or satellite service, Newsy’s programming will help these companies retain the younger customers who are looking for the alternative to the noise on today’s cable news channels.”

Those new distribution deals, he added, also help Newsy further develop a dual revenue stream model that factors in carriage fees and ad dollars, “even as we expect to retain a low digital cost structure.”

Down South, college football is king.

And given ESPN’s success in inking affiliate pacts for the fledgling SEC Network, it may be in the North, West and East as well — en route to what is looking like the biggest launch in cable history.

Last Friday, The Walt Disney Co. announced a comprehensive, multiyear renewal pact with the National Cable Television Cooperative encompassing a host of advanced services, including the programmer’s “Watch” TV Everywhere platform, and its suite of channels, notably the SEC Network, which kicks off on Aug. 14.

It was the latest in a string of affiliate deals that at press time would put the SEC Network in front of 67 million subscribers — and counting.

During a July 31 earnings conference call with analysts, DirecTV CEO Mike White noted that the company is close to finalizing a deal with the SEC Network, saying it has agreed with ESPN on rates for the channel but has yet to set a launch date. Some reports suggest DirecTV may wait until Aug. 28, when Texas A&M meets South Carolina in the first of the service’s 45 conference football games.

Charter Communications last week said it is finalizing a distribution deal with ESPN and it “will have the SEC Network for its August 14 launch.”

Adding 20 million subscribers from DirecTV and more than 4 million video customers from Charter would push the SEC Network launch past the 90 million-subscriber mark.

With most expecting Verizon Communications to ink an affiliate accord for its FiOS TV as well — the telco said it is negotiating with ESPN — SEC Network could bow in more than 95 million homes to easily surpass Fox Sports 1, which was converted from Speed and debuted with some 90 million subscribers on Aug. 17, 2013, as the industry’s biggest launch.

ESPN said it doesn’t comment on ongoing negotiations.

Justin Connolly, ESPN’s senior vice president of college networks, maintained that stance in a recent interview, saying, “I’m confident we’re going to get more deals done, but until things are actually signed, a contract is just a piece of paper.”

In addition to the NCTC, ESPN, which owns the network along with the Southeastern Conference, already has deals with Comcast, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Cox Communications, and with smaller providers. It has been reportedly seeking distribution pacts carrying a monthly subscriber fee of $1.40 within the conference’s 11-state footprint, and 25 cents outside those boundaries.

Echoing ESPN president John Skipper’s goal of attaining similar levels of carriage as broader collegiate service ESPNU, Connolly said the SEC Network’s affiliate goals are aimed toward “the benchmark” of having the top level of penetration within the conference’s 11 states and the second-highest level out of market. “We seem to be getting that mix,” he said, while noting there is a difference in “the carriage we have in Alabama, than in Oregon.”

Over its freshman season, the network will televise 450 events and present another 550 digital-exclusive live conference contests on SECNetwork.com and WatchESPN.

DirecTV remains the only major provider lacking an accord to present WatchESPN, which is now available to some 75 million homes nationwide.