Carlton Cinema (TV channel)

Carlton Cinema was a British digital film television channel, provided by Carlton Television. It launched in November 1998 on the ITV Digital platform, and closed down in March 2003, 5 months after Carlton went off the air in the London region, being the last Carlton-branded television network to do so. Its sister channels were Carlton Select, Carlton World, Carlton Kids, and Carlton Food Network. The channel launched on cable in March 2000 as an evening only replacement for Carlton Select. The first film shown on the channel was the 1953 film Genevieve.

Carlton Cinema
Ownership
OwnerCarlton Television
(Carlton Communications)
History
Launched15 November 1998 (1998-11-15)[1]
Closed31 March 2003 (2003-03-31)[2]
Availability
(at time of closure)
Terrestrial
ITV DigitalChannel 28
Cable
NTLChannel 309
TelewestChannel 425

Closure

Carlton Cinema struggled to keep going and was removed from NTL's digital channel line-up in September 2002 when the ITV Digital platform ceased broadcasting on 1 May 2002. Carlton was negotiating with BSkyB to get the channel onto Sky, but no deal was agreed. The closure was announced on 9 December 2002.[3] The channel closed on 31 March 2003. On that night came the last two films on Carlton Cinema: Genevieve, which was the first film broadcast on the channel on the launch night in November 1998, and afterwards the 1981 neo-noir Body Heat. Following the conclusion of the latter, continuity announcer Fiona Goldman made the closing announcement:

"Well, that was the last film on Carlton Cinema. It's been almost four-and-a-half years since we first went to air and during that time, we've shown over 4,000 films. We hope you've enjoyed watching them as much as we've enjoyed showing them. So, from our director of programmes George McKee, myself Fiona Goldman, and all the team here at Carlton Cinema, it's been a great pleasure and thank you for having been with us. Now, all we have to do is pick up the popcorn and turn off the lights."[4]

Then they aired a montage of scenes and quotes from all the films they showed, to the tune of Alice Faye's You'll Never Know, which was regularly being shown on the channel during the final two weeks of its transmission. The farewell montage concluded with the last words ever heard on the channel:

Carlton Cinema thanks all our viewers for tuning in over the last four years. We hope you enjoyed watching the films as much as we've enjoyed bringing them to you.

The final image shown was a movie theatre screen curtain (one of the many icons of movie palaces during the Golden Age of Hollywood) closing, revealing (for the final time) the Carlton Cinema logo with the date of launch (15 November 1998) on the top and the date of closure (31 March 2003) on the bottom. After a final fade to black, the channel's DOG was still seen for the last 15 minutes. The channel's transmitters were finally shut down at midnight.

References
  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-08-20. Retrieved 2010-03-07.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRYfzGaHP8c
  3. Deans, Jason (4 December 2002). "Carlton finally drops digital channel". Theguardian.com.
  4. The End of Carlton Cinema, 31/03/2003
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