A significant segment of the TV-watching public wants family-friendly content, and producer Brian Bird is doing his best to make sure they have more than a few options.

Bird may be best known as being an executive producer of the popular Hallmark television series "When Calls The Heart" – which recently was renewed for a sixth season -- but he’s also had his hand in several other family-friendly projects, including "The Case for Christ" (co-producer), "Captive" (executive producer) and "Touched by an Angel" (producer).

Now, Bird is unveiling his next project.

Called "Big Sky," it is based on an Amish book series by author Tricia Goyer. It recently was sold to Netflix, although a release date has not been set.

Whole family can watch

“I'm excited,” Bird told Blasting News. “People are taking notice of the hunger out there for faith-and-family content. [Big Sky] is a little different show than When Calls The Heart. It’s set in contemporary times, but it's going to push all the same buttons for the audience and will be a show that the whole family can watch together.”

Bird said he grew up watching television with his parents – something that isn’t easy to do nowadays with few kid-friendly and family-friendly options on television.

“That was a cultural experience that was part of my growing-up years -- watching Bonanza and [other] shows with my family.

And that's lost to us now. But When Calls the Heart is actually bringing it back, because we hear from a lot of our fans. … They tell us all the time: ‘We loved watching the show with our whole family and it's pretty hard to find anything else that you can do that with.’”

Devotions From Hope Valley

Bird this year released a devotional, When God Calls The Heart: Devotions From Hope Valley, which includes 40 devotionals based on the series.

Broadstreet is the publisher.

“When we started five years ago we weren't envisioning a devotional. We were just trying to do good storytelling,” Bird said. “It had our worldview woven into it. I've been a Christian since I was a little kid. I was raised in the church. My grandfather was a pastor, my father was a pastor for a time.

So this is who I am as a person of faith and so it's not that hard to weave your worldview into your storytelling. It’s depicting people as they live in a community, and it's a community that does believe in Providence, that does believe that God."

In the devotional, Bird said, he and co-author Michelle Cox "look at 40 episodes" and examine "these really interesting God moments that we can expand upon."
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