It's Love Week! How the TV holiday rom-com got so successful

NPR | By Wailin Wong,

Adrian Ma, Julia Ritchey, Kate Concannon

Published October 22, 2024 at 9:19 AM EDT

Welcome to Love Week on the Indicator, our weeklong series exploring the business and economic side of romance. On today's show, we fire up the gas logs and pour a mug of cocoa to discuss the made-for-TV rom-com machine, and how television executives learned to mass produce seasonal romance.

Special thanks to Grant-Lee Phillips for our Love Week theme song and Kaitlin Brito for episode artwork.

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

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Wailin Wong

Wailin Wong is a co-host of The Indicator from Planet Money.

Adrian Ma

Adrian Ma covers work, money and other "business-ish" for The Indicator from Planet Money, the daily economics podcast from NPR.

Julia Ritchey

Julia Ritchey is an audio journalist with 15 years experience reporting, editing and podcasting all over the country. She's reported from eight states and all four U.S. time zones, most recently at Nashville Public Radio, Tennessee's largest NPR affiliate, overseeing the station's policy, environmental and education beats.

Kate Concannon

Kate Concannon is the Supervising Senior Editor at The Indicator from Planet Money. She leads this small, collaborative team of hosts, reporters and producers in making sense of crucial, but often complex and confusing, economic news in just 10 minutes a day.

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