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When it comes to TV, Halloween is about far more than kids getting dressing up and heading out to trick-or-treat. The holiday has become a hallowed season for horror-themed television programming that translates to increased sponsorship, bigger ratings and a litany of movie marathons across the cable landscape. Come October, even casual viewers of the genre suddenly want to be scared out of their minds.
Thomas P. Vitale, Chiller’s EVP of programming and original movies describes the season’s appeal thus: “The sun starts going down a little bit earlier, the weather changes, the leaves start to turn - it’s a great time to snuggle up at home and enjoy some good, wholesome scary programming.”
EPIX’s DreadFest. Disney Channel’s Monstober. TCM’s Friday Night Spooklight. Food Network’s Halloween Wars. More and more networks are joining the cable Halloween wars, in an ever-increasing competition for viewers starved for blood and guts.
The season’s unofficial kick-off came Sunday, Oct. 12, when AMC’s zombie hit, The Walking Dead, returned for its fifth season and most-watched episode ever with 17.3 million viewers tuning in, according to AMC. That debut was preceded by the network’s Zombie Apocalypse Week, and followed by FearFest, which takes over AMC from Oct. 17 through Oct. 31. FearFest is a treasure trove of horror-franchise marathons, including the timeless horror classic, Friday the 13th.
Halloween is somewhat like the Super Bowl for horror net Chiller, says Vitale, and this is already Chiller’s most-watched October to date, with the network landing huge deliveries for classic movies such as Pumpkinhead and newer films such as Grave Encounters 2. With a boom in horror-oriented theatricals and TV series, Vitale considers the genre’s renaissance as proof that it’s “not a niche genre. This is a broad-based popular genre that everybody seems to love…,” a phenomenon “that can only help Chiller.”
This year, Chiller (which, like Syfy, falls under the NBCUniversal umbrella) teamed with Play Creative TV to bolster sampling “and get the word out” about October Movie Madness.
Every night at 9 p.m. ET, the network rotates classics, cult favorites or films making their Chiller debut, such as Drew Barrymore’s Animal, a Chiller original. Networks hope to be binge-worthy; Chiller wants to be #cringeworthy. Chiller will be watching and tweeting along with viewers under the #Cringewatch hashtag, with yet to be announced special guests joining the viral fun.
Other networks also are taking advantage of renewed interest in the horror and pseudo-horror genres. Syfy reeled in its highest-rated month for movies among adults 18-49 last October with the surprise performance of campy horror flick, Sharknado.
“[October is] always a rich ratings environment for us,” says Michael Engleman, Syfy’s EVP of marketing and digital and global brand strategy.
This year marks Syfy’s seventh Annual 31 Days of Halloween. To Engleman, the month is a “long tradition of mining the holiday for some of its best and brightest ideas and series.”
While its specific offerings vary annually, the “…spirit and the sensibility of escape and imagination” never waver, giving Syfy “a platform to celebrate some of our classic originals and launch some brand new programming.”
Star Grant Wilson returns to Syfy’s Ghost Hunters for the show’s landmark 200th episode on Oct. 22. New shows include Town of the Living Dead, a comedic docu-series that chronicles the “Keystone Cops of filmmaking,” intent on making a feature-length zombie film. Its cast will be deployed throughout Syfy’s social media and digital platforms during the holiday, offering “cutting-room content” and “interstitial work that they’ve created.”
Engleman promises “…a lot of Easter eggs pertaining to new platforms, to the stars of these shows, and…little gifts to the fans, in terms of exclusive and special content,” coinciding with a Haven/WWE promotion. Horror is not a one month affair for Syfy: “We call it the 31 Days of Halloween, but…we actually could start calling it the 62 or 93 days of Halloween,” thanks to Z Nation, a new zombie series that premiered Sept. 12 to big ratings.
Halloween also presents networks with sweet sponsorship opportunities, as evidenced by Hershey’s 360 partnership with Syfy.
“It’s obviously an important season for them and their products,” says Engleman, and Syfy “give[s] them a really terrific platform,” while their “enormous” social and digital platforms “give us terrific reach.”
ABC Family has turned holidays into promotional mainstays: the network’s annual 13 Nights of Halloween commences Oct. 19, featuring kid-friendly scares such as The Addams Family and the premiere of Freak Out, a hidden-camera prank reality series debuting Oct. 21. Network staples Melissa & Joey and Baby Daddy both have Halloween-themed episodes, and Pretty Little Liars is screening “We Love You To DeAth,” a fan appreciation special in which cast and crew answer fan questions via Twitter (#PLLHalloween).
Although Halloween is mostly a cable network battleground, Fox and ABC rely on tried and true franchises for some holiday fun. The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror” specials remain a ratings monster for Fox. Last year, its 24th iteration had Sunday’s highest non-football rating in the 18-49 demo. “Treehouse of Horror XXV” airs Sunday, Oct. 19.
Four days earlier, ABC will air Toy Story of TERROR! alongside It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. The Peanuts’ appeal shows no sign of wilting; the gang’s presence helped ABC win its first night of November sweeps in six years last year.
Despite more and more networks dressing up for Halloween, it seems there’s enough content to go around. None of these cable networks will be getting a rock this month.
While Halloween is the culmination of the scary-programming season, it’s also become the unofficial start of TV’s most wonderful time of the year: When most of the country snuggles into bed Halloween night for scary programming, Hallmark Channel’s Countdown to Christmas will have already begun.
[Image from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre courtesy of EPIX]
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