Carlton Cinema was a British digital

Digital

A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...

 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 television channel

Television channel

A television channel is a physical or virtual channel over which a television station or television network is distributed. For example, in North America, "channel 2" refers to the broadcast or cable band of 54 to 60 MHz, with carrier frequencies of 55.25 MHz for NTSC analog video and...

, provided by Carlton Television

Carlton Television

Carlton Television was the ITV franchise holder for London and the surrounding counties including the cities of Solihull and Coventry of the West Midlands, south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire,...

. It launched in November 1998 on the ONdigital

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 as ONdigital in 1998 and briefly re-branded as ITV Digital in July 2001, before the service ceased in May 2002. Its main shareholders...

 platform, and closed down in March 2003, being the last ever Carlton-branded television network. Its sister channels are Carlton Select

Carlton Select

Carlton Select was a British digital television channel, owned by Carlton Television. It was launched in February 1997, and closed down in March 2000. Its sister channels were Carlton Cinema, Carlton Food Network, Carlton Kids and Carlton World....

, Carlton World

Carlton World

Carlton World was a British digital television channel, launched in November 1998 and closed down in early 2000. Its sister channels were Carlton Kids, Carlton Food Network, Carlton Select and Carlton Cinema...

, Carlton Kids

Carlton Kids

Carlton Kids was a digital children's television channel, provided by Carlton Television, which started broadcasting in 1998 and closed in early 2000. Its sister channels were Carlton Food Network, Carlton World, Carlton Cinema and Carlton Select...

, and Carlton Food Network

Carlton Food Network

Carlton Food Network was a British digital television channel, provided by Carlton Television, showing food and cookery programmes. It launched in September 1996, and closed in November 2001...

. The channel launched on cable

Cable television

Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...

 in March 2000.

Films

The first film shown was the 1953 film Genevieve

Genevieve (film)

Genevieve is a 1953 British comedy film produced and directed by Henry Cornelius and written by William Rose. It starred John Gregson, Dinah Sheridan, Kenneth More and Kay Kendall as two couples comedically involved in a vintage automobile rally...

. The final film shown was the 1981 neo-film noir

Film noir

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

 Body Heat

Body Heat

Body Heat is a 1981 American neo-noir film written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. It stars William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna, Ted Danson, J.A. Preston, and Mickey Rourke. The film is inspired by Double Indemnity....

at 23:40.

Unlike other UK film channels, sometimes cartoon

Cartoon

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

s would be shown between the films. These were mainly Betty Boop

Betty Boop

Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character created by Max Fleischer, with help from animators including Grim Natwick. She originally appeared in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop film series, which were produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. She has also been featured in...

, though Famous Studios

Famous Studios

Famous Studios was the animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was founded as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount acquired the aforementioned studio and ousted its founders, Max and Dave Fleischer, in 1941...

' Screen Songs

Screen Songs

Screen Songs is the name of a series of animated cartoons produced by the Fleischer Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures between 1929 and 1938. They were revived by Famous Studios in 1945 starting with the Noveltoon Old MacDonald Had a Farm....

 and some Merrie Melodies

Merrie Melodies

Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures between 1931 and 1969.Originally produced by Harman-Ising Pictures, Merrie Melodies were produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1944. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944,...

/Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...

 were also shown. Disney films was shown in the holidays and other children's films too, and specials were broadcast in Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 & Summer

Summer

Summer is the warmest of the four temperate seasons, between spring and autumn. At the summer solstice, the days are longest and the nights are shortest, with day-length decreasing as the season progresses after the solstice...

 on Carlton Cinema.

History

Carlton Cinema was also the only channel on DTT

DTT

DTT may refer to:* Demographic transition theory, a four stage transition model, which all countries progress through as they develop economically* Double taxation treaty...

 that ever carried an analogue

Analog signal

An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...

 teletext stream. It carried just a single P100 for ONrequest prompts.

The channel struggled after ITV Digital

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 as ONdigital in 1998 and briefly re-branded as ITV Digital in July 2001, before the service ceased in May 2002. Its main shareholders...

 (the new 2001 name for ONdigital) closed in May 2002. Talks to launch the channel on Sky Digital fell through, and the channel closed at 11:40 P.M. on 31 March 2003, the last of the five channels to do so.

External links

• Carlton Cinema at TVARK