Carlton Food Network

Carlton Food Network (later known as Taste CFN from May 2001) was a British pay television digital terrestrial channel, owned by Carlton Television, showing food and cookery programmes and showcased the best of Carlton and other ITV cookery programmes. It launched in September 1996, and closed in December 2001. It was part of a group of non-terrestrial channels operated by Carlton, including Carlton Select, Carlton World, Carlton Kids, and Carlton Cinema.

This article is about the defunct. For the US channel with a similar name, see Food Network.
Carlton Food Network
Carlton Food Network ident from 1999.
Launched1 September 1996 (1996-09-01)
Closed1 December 2001 (2001-12-01)
Owned byCarlton Television
(Carlton Communications)
Sister channel(s)Carlton Select
Carlton Cinema
Carlton Kids
Carlton World
Availability
(at time of closure)
Terrestrial
ITV DigitalChannel 35
Cable
NTLChannel 134
TelewestChannel 297

History

Carlton Food Network launched in September 1996 on cable. It originally broadcast on weekday afternoons, sharing space with SelecTV, later bought by Carlton itself and renamed Carlton Select. It began broadcasting on the ONdigital (now ITV Digital) platform at its launch in November 1998, which was part owned by Carlton along with another ITV company Granada, who also operated its own group of Granada branded channels under a partnership with Sky known as Granada Sky Broadcasting. In early 2000, Carlton Select was closed down and its hours were given over to Carlton Food Network resulting in CFN becoming a full-time channel.[1]

The Taste CFN era
Taste CFN logo, used from May 2001 until the channel closed in December 2001.

In September 2000, Carlton announced it had a signed a joint venture with the supermarket chain Sainsbury's to co-brand the channel. The deal saw the announcement of interactive services for digital TV viewers that would allow them to order recipe ingredients from Sainsbury's through their set-top box. The rebranding took place the following May, with the channel becoming Taste CFN and the launch of the taste.co.uk website, merging Carlton's SimplyFood and Sainsbury's tasteforlife websites. The channel was now promoted by Sainsbury's both in-store and on its website.[2]

However the partnership was brief and it was announced in August 2001 that the venture was to be disbanded on 1 September. Less than expected revenues from e-commerce and a weakened advertising market were blamed on the decision to close the venture, which saw the return of ownership of the Taste CFN channel back to Carlton and the return of the web-based recipe and wine assets to Sainsbury's, with the taste.co.uk website being shut down and its assets being reused by Sainsbury's own websites.[3][4]

Although Carlton were returned ownership of Taste CFN as part of the venture disbanding, Carlton decided to close the channel and it ceased broadcasting on 1 December. On ITV Digital, it was anticipated that the slot was to be filled by a new channel on the now struggling platform, but in the end the space became a preview channel for ITV Digital suppliers and potential customers.

Post closure

Less than a month before the closure of the channel, a new food and cookery channel from the UKTV network began broadcasting, UK Food, a spin-off channel from UK Style. Now known as the Good Food Channel, the channel has been known to broadcast former CFN programming, including original programming that was made for CFN such as Use Your Loaf, co-hosted by James Martin and Paul Hollywood.[5][6]Good Food closed on 11th September 2019 due to discovery taking control and deciding to merge the channel with the Food Network.

See also

References
  1. "Discovery channels boost ONdigital". The Independent. 22 December 1999.
  2. "Sainsbury's to front digital TV". MediaWeek. 28 September 2000. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  3. "Sainsbury's and Carlton disband Taste". Brand Republic. 10 August 2001. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  4. "Carlton and Sainsbury's scrap the Taste Network". PRWeek. 15 August 2001. Archived from the original on 30 July 2013. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  5. "Carlton Food Network to serve up trio of shows". Broadcast. 24 March 2000. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  6. "Use Your Loaf on Good Food Channel". UKTV. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
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