Good Food is a lifestyle channel broadcasting in the United Kingdom as part of the UKTV

UKTV

UKTV is a digital cable and satellite television network, formed through a joint venture between BBC Worldwide, a commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and Scripps Networks Interactive, spun off from The E.W Scripps Company in 2008...

 network of channels. The channel originally launched on 5 November 2001 and relaunched in its current format on 22 June 2009. Good Food is available on satellite through Sky and on cable services, primarily through Virgin Media

Virgin Media

Virgin Media Inc. is a company which provides fixed and mobile telephone, television and broadband internet services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom...

. The channel is not available on the digital terrestrial platform Freeview

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

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's programme archive. The channel is similar to a former international channel run by BBC Worldwide

BBC Worldwide

BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...

 called BBC Food

BBC Food

BBC Food was the name of the BBC's international commercial television channel focusing solely on food until it was replaced in the television markets it was broadcast by BBC Lifestyle. The channel was owned and operated by BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm.The channel launched in June 2002...

, as both use similar programming and both have a similar format. The channel changed it's 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 is based on that of the Good Food cookery magazine, published by BBC Magazines

BBC Magazines

BBC Magazines is the magazine publishing division of BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation.A list of the published magazines and the age groups they are targeted towards follows:-Adult:*BBC History*BBC Music...

. The channel and the magazine continue to be operated separately

Timeshift

The network also operates a time shifted version of the channel Good Food +1, which shows the same schedule an hour later for catch up purposes. The time shifted channel does not use any special branding, with the occasional exception of a change in Digital on-screen graphic

Digital on-screen graphic

A digital on-screen graphic is a watermark-like station logo that many television broadcasters overlay over a portion of the screen-area of their programs to identify the channel...

 (DOG). The time shift channel is 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

High-definition television

High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...

 version of Good Food on their cable television platform. Good Food HD launched on 31 August 2010 on Sky, broadcasting a HD simulcast

Simulcast

Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...

 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 will be added to Virgin's cable television service by 2012. Good Food HD was added to Virgin Media on 7 October 2011.

Identity

When the channel launched as UK Food 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

Station identification

Station identification is the practice of radio or television stations or networks identifying themselves on air, typically by means of a call sign or brand name...

 themselves as well as channel promotions.

Following the rebranding as UKTV Food, the channels identity was altered. The swirling motif was retained within the idents themselves: indeed many of the previous idents survived the rebrand to be reused again. The primary difference was the addition of the two lined UKTV logo, alligned 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 finish 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.

Programming

The channel primarily airs programming from the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's programming archive and programming aired on other domestic and international channels bought in by the channel. These programmes include:

• 4 Ingredients
• Ace of Cakes
  Ace of Cakes
  Ace of Cakes is an American reality television show which airs on the Food Network. The show focuses on the daily operations of Duff Goldman's custom cake shop, Charm City Cakes, in Baltimore, Maryland; including small-business ownership, working with various vendors, tasting with customers,...
  
  
• Barefoot Contessa
  Barefoot Contessa
  Barefoot Contessa is a cooking show that premiered November 30, 2002 on Food Network. This popular show is hosted by celebrity chef Ina Garten. Each episode features Garten assembling dishes of varying complexity. Though her speciality is French cuisine, she occasionally prepares American, Asian,...
  
  
• Chefs in the City
• Choccywoccydoodah
• Dinner Impossible
• James Martin's Brittany
• Man v. Food
  Man v. Food
  Man v. Food is an American food reality television series. It premiered on December 3, 2008, on the Travel Channel. The program is hosted by actor and food enthusiast Adam Richman. In each episode, Richman explores the "big food" offerings of a different American city before facing off against a...
  
  
• Market Kitchen
  Market Kitchen
  Market Kitchen is a cookery programme, made by Optomen, that premiered on Good Food in 2007. Presented by Rachel Allen, Amanda Lamb, Matt Tebbutt, Tom Parker Bowles and Matthew Fort, the programme concentrates on seasonal cooking and features visits to a local market to obtain seasonal produce...
  
  
• MasterChef
• MasterChef Australia
  Masterchef Australia
  MasterChef Australia is a Logie award winning Australian competitive cooking game show based on the original British MasterChef. It is produced by FremantleMedia Australia and screens on Network Ten. Restaurateur and chef Gary Mehigan, chef George Calombaris and food critic Matt Preston serve as...
  
  
• Mitch and Matt's Big Fish
• Monster Munchies
• My Restaurant Rules
  My Restaurant Rules
  My Restaurant Rules is an Australian reality television series that aired on the Seven Network.-Overview:The series pits five couples, one each from Australia's five largest cities, to compete against each other in opening a successful restaurant....
  
  
• Nigella Bites
• New Brititsh Kitchen
• Oliver's Twist
  Oliver's Twist
  Oliver's Twist is a television series featuring chef Jamie Oliver, the name of the programme is a pun on the title of Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. Following the popularity of his first TV series, The Naked Chef, he began producing Oliver's Twist to be aired outside the UK...
  
  
• Rachel Allen: Bake!
  Rachel Allen: Bake!
  Rachel Allen: Bake! is an Irish cookery television show presented by Rachel Allen and broadcast on RTÉ One each Wednesday at 7:30pm. The first episode aired on October 15, 2008...
  
  
• Rhodes Across India
• Rhodes Across Italy
• Rhodes Across the Caribbean
• Saturday Kitchen
  Saturday Kitchen
  Saturday Kitchen Live is a 90 minute cookery programme, which is broadcast live on BBC One on Saturday mornings. It is currently presented by James Martin; previous presenters have included Antony Worrall Thompson and Gregg Wallace. The programme is currently produced by Cactus TV...
  
  
• The Best in Australia

Website

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.

External links

• Good Food
• Good Food on Facebook
  Facebook
  Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
  
  
• Good Food at TVARK
• UKTV at The TV Room