Good Food was a British 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. Good Food was available on satellite through Sky and through IPTV with TalkTalk TV, BT TV. From 1 December 2015 to 26 December 2015, Good Food was temporarily rebranded as Christmas Food; the campaign resumed from 26 November 2016 to 26 December 2016. It returned on 26 November 2017. Good Food ceased broadcasting on 12 September 2019, with all its programmes moving to Food Network.
History
The channel originally launched on 5 November 2001 as UK Food, as a channel dedicated to cookery programmes that had previously been broadcast on the increasingly crowded UK Style channel. The channel uses a large amount of programming from the BBC's programme archive. The channel is familiar to a former international channel run by BBC Worldwide called BBC Food, as both use similar programming and both have a similar format. The channel changed its name on 8 March 2004 to UKTV Food. As part of the rebranding of all UKTV's channels to a unique name and identity, UKTV Food rebranded as Good Food on 22 June 2009, the last of UKTV's brands to do so. The name was based on that of the BBC Good Food cookery magazine, published by Immediate Media Company. The channel and the magazine continue to be operated separately. On 1 April 2019, it was announced that UKTV co-owner Discovery Inc. would acquire the BBC's stake in Good Food. On 5 September 2019, Discovery announced that Good Food would merge with Food Network and close on 12 September 2019, with its programmes moving to the sister channel. Good Food was removed from Virgin Media on 11 September, while the channel itself was shut down on 12 September 2019, after which the channel space created in 2001 by UK Food ceased to exist. The last programme to be shown was a repeat of Choccywoccydoodah.
Subsidiary channels
Good Food +1
The network also operated a time shifted version of the channel Good Food +1, which shows the same schedule an hour later for catch up purposes. The timeshifted channel does not use any special branding, with the occasional exception of a change in Digital on-screen graphic. The timeshift channel was available on Sky and Virgin Media.
Good Food HD
On 13 July 2009, Virgin Media revealed that they were "currently in active talks" with UKTV about launching a high-definition version of Good Food on their cable television platform. Good Food HD launched on 31 August 2010 on Sky, broadcasting a HD simulcast of the channel's schedule. As part of Virgin Media's deal to sell its share of UKTV, all five of UKTV's HD channels were added to Virgin's cable television service by 2012. Good Food HD was added to Virgin Media on 7 October 2011.
On-air identity
When UK Food channel launched in 2001, the channel adopted a branding package based around circular shaped foods with a spiral pattern located in the centre when looked at from above. The channel's logo at the time featured the name, stylised as UK Food, and a two lined spiral extending outwards from the right of the name. The majority of UKTV channels had some pattern located there to distinguish the channel, and this spiral also featured in the idents themselves as well as channel promotions. Following the rebranding as UKTV Food, the channel's identity was altered. The swirling motif was retained within the idents themselves: indeed many of the previous idents survived rebrand reuse. The primary difference was the addition of the two lined UKTV logo, aligned to the left of the screen. The channels colour was orange, and was used in different shades as the background colour to all promotion end boards and static slides both on the channel and for promotion across the network. Following the rebrand to Good Food, the idents changed to sequences involving the coming together of ingredients to events such as a picnic barbecue, a dinner party and a family Sunday roast. The idents finished with an endboard featuring the circular Good Food logo in the centre of a screen with food imagery in the background, such as fish outlines, knife and fork or wine glasses.
Former programming
The channel aired programming from the BBC's programming archive and programming aired on other domestic and international channels bought in by the channel. These programmes included:
The Good Food website, originally devised and launched by Ian Fenn and Ally Branley, provides a number of services including information on programmes shown on the channel, recipes, message boards, and a wine club. Recipes come from the various shows on Good Food and some include videos taken from the demonstrations. In September 2006 Good Food's website overtook the BBC Food site in popularity for the first time, achieving a 10% market share, against the 9.63% the BBC Food site dropped to, having held the top spot since it began. The channel's website now redirects to Food Network's UK website.
