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 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.
The Taste CFN era
In September 2000, Carlton announced it had a signed a joint venture with the supermarket chainSainsbury'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. 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 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.Good Food closed on 11th September 2019 due to discovery taking control and deciding to merge the channel with the Food Network.
