HALLMARK CHANNEL AND FAITH & VALUES MEDIA HONORED WITH TWO GABRIEL AWARDS AT THE CITY OF ANGELS FILM FESTIVAL

Network Recognized for �Love Comes Softly� and Faith & Values Media Documentary �Reluctant Saint: Francis of Assisi�

Hallmark Channel and Faith & Values Media were presented with two Gabriel Awards on October 22, 2004 during the City of Angels Film Festival. The awards recognize the original movie, �Love Comes Softly,� and the original docudrama �Reluctant Saint: Francis of Assisi.� The Gabriel Awards, presented by the Catholic Academy for Communication Arts Professionals, honor works of excellence in broadcasting which serve viewers and listeners through the positive, creative treatment of concerns to humankind.

�Hallmark Channel is honored to receive these awards. Our programming celebrates caring, human relations and family, bringing up-lifting content to our viewers,� said David Kenin, Executive Vice President of Programming at Hallmark Channel. �I would like to congratulate the people who worked on these projects for their talent and success in producing high-quality, family-friendly programming.�

�Loves Comes Softly,� premiered on Saturday, April 13, 2003, and stars Katherine Heigl (�Roswell�) as �Marty Claridge,� a young pioneer woman whose husband, �Aaron� (Oliver MacReady, �The Guiding Light�), gets killed by a runaway horse. Marty ends up far from home and in a sea of strangers until she meets �Clark,� (Dale Midkiff, �Nancy Drew,� �Air Bud: World Pup�) who offers to marry her. In a place where all hope seems lost, Marty, Clark and his tenyear- old daughter (Skye McCole Bartusiak, �The Patriot,� �24�) discover love is found in the most unlikely of places. �Loves Comes Softly� was written and directed by Michael Landon, Jr. and is based on the first of eight Love Comes Softly novels by the writer Janette Oke. This original proved to be a total success, recognized as award-winning, quality programming, while also achieving the highest ratings of any original movie to premiere on Hallmark Channel, with a 2.7 HH rating.

�Reluctant Saint: Francis of Assisi� is an original documentary produced by Faith & Values Media. It premiered on Hallmark Channel on Sunday, April 13, 2003. Liev Schreiber (�Kate and Leopold� and �The Hurricane�) provides the voiceover narration and Robert Sean Leonard (�Dead Poets Society� and �The Age of Innocence�) is the voice of St. Francis. The documentary is an interpretation of the life of one of the best loved and least understood saints, based on the acclaimed book by best-selling author Donald Spoto.

Faith & Values Media is the nation's largest coalition of Jewish and Christian faith groups dedicated to media production, distribution and promotion. Its member association is made up of denominations, organizations and individuals, which encompass most of the recognized Jewish and Christian faith groups in the United States. Together, these faith groups have more than 200,000 congregations with 120 million congregants. The award-winning programming services of Faith & Values Media are available on Hallmark Channel and on www.faithandvalues.com. Faith & Values Media is a service of the National Interfaith Cable Coalition, Inc., established in 1987.

Hallmark Channel is a 24-hour basic cable channel that provides high-quality, entertainment programming to a national audience of more than 64 million subscribers. The program service is distributed through nearly 4,500 cable systems and communities and directto- home satellite services across the country. Crown Media Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWN) owns and operates Hallmark Channel, which, in addition to the U.S., is distributed worldwide to more than 122 countries. The combined channels reach more than 116 million subscribers globally. In January 2004, Crown launched its first digital service, the Hallmark Movie Channel, which is its second 24-hour linear channel. Through its subsidiary, Crown Media Distribution, LLC, Crown also distributes award-winning titles from the Hallmark Entertainment collection for exhibition in a variety of television media including Video-on-Demand and High Definition Television.

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For more information visit www.hallmarkchannel.com or www.hallmarkmoviechannel.com