I went and visited my aunt over Easter weekend, and she has the Cooking Channel on her cable, so it was my first opportunity to check it out. (My cable company sucks and hasn't added it yet.) After watching it for a couple days, I've basically concluded that Food Network took all of their good shows and put them on Cooking Channel, leaving nothing behind on FN except old tired "personalities" like Paula Deen, who ran out of original recipe ideas about four years ago, and new "original" programming like a show about a team of ice sculptors.
Cooking Channel has so much more variety and a lot more new shows. While on Food Network we're stuck watching Ina Garten make the same French recipes over and over again, Cooking Channel has shows about Italian, Indian, Chinese, and French cooking. While Food Network is showing us reruns of 30 Minute Meals and Barefoot Contessa from five years ago, Cooking channel has reruns of classic shows that people might actually want to watch, like Two Fat Ladies. Cooking Channel has Nigella. (Enough said.) While Food Network is still trying to make Melissa D'Arabian happen with the boring $10 Dinners (never mind that none of the meals could actually be made for $10), Cooking Channel gave Next Food Network Star runner up and should-have-been-winner Jeffrey Saad his own show, United Tastes of America. Bitchin' Kitchen is totally over-the-top and ridiculous but also totally entertaining, and even the food truck show is more interesting that watching Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives for the millionth time.
To sum up, I'd straight up trade in my Food Network for Cooking Channel at this point. Does anyone else who has seen both channels want to weigh in? I'll be busy trying to think up bribes for my cable company to get them to add this channel.
