Zone Romantica

Zone Romantica (formerly Romantica) was a European TV channel that launched in 1998. The channel broadcast a mixture of telenovelas, music and entertainment from all over the world, but mainly from Latin America. The channel was available 24 hours a day, to 20 territories across Europe and the Middle East. The channel reached 8 million subscribers.

Zone Romantica

Broadcast area	Europe
Network	Chello Zone/Chello Central Europe
Programming
Picture format	576i (SDTV)
Ownership
Owner	Chellomedia Liberty Global
Sister channels	Zone Club Zone Europa Zone Fantasy Zone Horror Zone Reality Zone Thriller
History
Launched	Central & Eastern Europe: 1998 UK & Ireland: 3 September 2007
Closed	UK & Ireland: 16 November 2009 Hungary: 2 July 2012 Central & Eastern Europe: 3 December 2012
Replaced by	Romania: Romantica (2007–2012) UK & Ireland: CBS Drama (2009) Hungary & Romania: Film Café (2012) Central & Eastern Europe: CBS Drama (2012) Poland: CBS Action (2012)
Former names	Romantica (Until 2006)
Links
Website	zoneromantica.tv romantica.tv UK

The channel launched on Sky Digital in the UK and Ireland on 3 September 2007. It was broadcasting between 8 a.m. and 3 a.m. from the start.[1] It slot on the Sky EPG had been purchased from BEN TV.[2]

On 6 May 2008 it was one of the channels that were on the free-to-air platform Freesat platform from the start.[3]

On 14 September 2009, it was revealed that the international arm of CBS, CBS Studios International, struck a joint venture deal with Chellomedia to launch six CBS-branded channels in the UK during 2009. The new channels would replace Zone Romantica, Zone Thriller, Zone Horror and Zone Reality, plus timeshift services Zone Horror +1 and Zone Reality +1.[4][5] On 1 October 2009, it was announced that CBS Reality, CBS Reality +1, CBS Drama and CBS Action would launch on 16 November 2009 replacing Zone Reality, Zone Reality +1, Zone Romantica and Zone Thriller. On 5 April 2010, Zone Horror and Zone Horror +1 were rebranded as Horror Channel and Horror Channel +1, following the rebrand of the portfolio's other three channels in November 2009.[6]

On 2 July 2012, Hungarian version of Zone Romantica is replaced by Film Café.[7] On 1 August 2012 Chellomedia revealed that all European versions of the Zone Channels would be rebranded into CBS Channels.[8] CBS Action replaced Zone Romantica on 3 December 2012.[9]