HALLMARK CHANNEL GREENLIGHTS "TAKING A CHANCE ON LOVE," SEQUEL TO 2007 ORIGINAL HOLIDAY MOVIE, "THE NOTE"

Genie Francis and Ted McGinley Reprise Their Roles

Hallmark Channel has greenlit production of the original movie "Taking a Chance on Love," the sequel to the network's highly rated 2007 original holiday movie, "The Note," to begin in November in Toronto and to air on the network in January 2009. Genie Francis ("General Hospital") and Ted McGinley ("Hope & Faith") are attached to reprise their roles.

In "The Note," newspaper columnist Peyton MacGruder (Francis) took viewers on a journey of hope and inspiration as she traveled the country to find the intended recipient of an anonymous note found at the site of an airplane crash. As the story unfolds, Peyton finds moral support from her longtime colleague, King Danville (McGinley), with whom she shared a flirtatious-but-professional relationship. In "Taking a Chance on Love" Peyton investigates a reader's letter which unfolds into a story of lost love and gives her insight into her own life and the risk one must take to fall in love again.

"Taking a Chance on Love" is a Hallmark Channel presentation in association with Lightworks Pictures (an Odyssey Networks company) and Muse Entertainment. The movie is executive produced by Joel S. Rice ("Shredderman Rules") and William Spencer Reilly ("The Note") and produced by Steve Solomos ("Nature of the Beast"). Maura Dunbar is executive in charge of production. Douglas Barr ("To Be Fat Like Me") will direct from a script he wrote.

"The Note" was Hallmark Channel's highest-rated original movie premiere in 2007 and continues to rank as the network's fourth-highest-rated original movie premiere ever. The movie premiered on December 8, 2007 to a 3.4 HH rating and delivered over 2.8 million homes and over 5.2 million total viewers. The original movie became the highest-rated ad-supported cable telecast of the day, the second-highest-rated ad-supported cable movie of the week and won the Saturday, 9-11 p.m. time period. (Source: Nielsen Media Research, 11/24-12/9/07).

To support the premiere of "The Note," Hallmark Channel launched www.WhatWouldYouWrite.com, an outlet for viewers to submit their own personalized notes to family and friends. The movie was also supported by an extensive media campaign and online presence.

Hallmark Channel, owned and operated by Crown Media Holdings, Inc., is a 24-hour basic cable network that provides a diverse slate of high-quality entertainment programming to a national audience of 85 million subscribers. The top tier program service is distributed through more than 5,450 cable systems and communities as well as direct-to-home satellite services across the country. Hallmark Channel consistently ranks among the top 10 ad-supported cable networks in Prime Time and Total Day household ratings and is the nation's leading network in providing quality family programming. Crown Media also operates a second 24-hour linear channel which plays the greatest family movies of all time, Hallmark Movie Channel, and launched Hallmark Movie Channel HD in April, 2008.