network president called the idea for a 24 hour food channel the worst idea i ever heard. so what was food tv like 20 years ago and how did this network come about? well, it s funny because the first president of food network you are talking about is reese shonfeld, who is also the first president of cnn. he was a guy who thought of food network as cnn with stoves. so his idea was to tape many, many new cooking shows every day on an extremely low budget which cnn of course also was in the early days, and it was no one was really watching back then. this was no one thought this was a good idea. it wasn t just his wife. it took about six or seven years before anybody actually started watching the network. so what happened, 9/11 played a role, right, in the company s success? people were looking for comfort food, something other than the big story, and what had been built on high end chefs and