Carlton Food Network (later known as Taste CFN from May 2001) was a British

pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, b ...

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channel Channel, channels, channeling, etc., may refer to: Geography * Channel (geography), in physical geography, a landform consisting of the outline (banks) of the path of a narrow body of water. Australia * Channel Country, region of outback Austral ...

, owned by Carlton Television. It launched at midday on 1 September 1996 and closed on 1 December 2001. It was part of a group of non-terrestrial channels operated by Carlton, which also included

Carlton Select Carlton Select was a British digital television channel, owned by Carlton Television. It was originally launched in June 1995 as SelecTV, by the independent production company of the same name, before being purchased by Carlton in 1997 who re ...

– with whom Carlton Food Network time-shared space with – Carlton World, Carlton Kids, and Carlton Cinema. The channel was also available via the

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, the

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and

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on the

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n DStv service.

History

Carlton Food Network launched on 1 September 1996 on

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

. It originally broadcast on weekday afternoons, broadcasting from 12noon until 5pm, and shared space with SelecTV, which was subsequently bought by Carlton and renamed

. It began broadcasting on the

ONdigital ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television Broadcasting, broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications plc and Granada ...

(later

ITV Digital ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications plc and Granada plc, owners ...

) 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 The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space. In the field of astronomy, ...

known as

Granada Sky Broadcasting ITV Digital Channels Limited (formerly known as Granada Sky Broadcasting) is a wholly owned subsidiary of British broadcaster ITV plc. It manages all of the company's television channels with the exception of ITV, which is part of the entir ...

. In early 2000, Carlton Select was closed down and its hours on

were given over to Carlton Food Network resulting in CFN becoming a full-time channel. However the channel remained a daytime only service on cable with Carlton Cinema airing during the evenings in place of Carlton Select.

The Taste era

In September 2000, Carlton announced it had a signed a joint venture with the supermarket chain

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company ...

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. 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. Although Carlton returned ownership of Taste CFN as part of the venture disbanding, Carlton decided to close the channel and it ceased broadcasting on 1 December. The final day of transmission for the channel was full of never-before-seen programming. At 23:58, Taste CFN aired a farewell montage of clips from the programming aired all throughout its five years of operation, followed by a final airing of its ident, with a closing announcement: Afterward, before a final fade-out, this caption appeared on-screen: 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 UKTV Media Limited, simply known as UKTV, is a British multi-channel broadcaster, which, since 2019, has been wholly owned by BBC Studios (formerly BBC Worldwide), a commercial subsidiary of the BBC. It was formed on 1 November 1992 through ...

network began broadcasting,

UK Food Good Food was a cookery channel broadcasting in the United Kingdom and Ireland, latterly as part of the Discovery, Inc. network of channels. The channel originally launched on 5 November 2001 and relaunched in its final format on 22 June 2009 ...

, a spin-off channel from UK Style. Later known as the Good Food Channel before closedown, 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 Paul John Hollywood (born 1 March 1966) is an English celebrity chef and television presenter, widely known as a judge on ''The Great British Bake Off'' since 2010. Hollywood began his career at his father's bakery as a teenager and went on to ...

. Good Food closed on 11 September 2019 due to Discovery taking control of the channel and deciding to merge it with

the Food Network Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Grou ...

Programming

The channel broadcast food and

cookery Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to Outline of food preparation, prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric ...

programmes and showcased the best of Carlton and other

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

programmes. It also broadcast a weekday food magazine show called ''Food Network Daily'', which was shown several times each day.

References

External links