Emeril Lagasse’s “Emeril Live,” an hour-long cooking show taped in front of a live audience, was once the flagship of Food Network’s schedule, and Emeril was the network’s public face. He was so popular that he even became the star of a (terrible and short-lived) sitcom based on his life, produced by Harry and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason.

But as Food Network became more about competition shows, and its remaining cooking shows were dumbed down, Emeril’s ratings dropped off and he got pushed aside. I think projects like the sitcom also spread him too thin and the show suffered.

For a while, a few remaining new episodes and some reruns of “Emeril Live” aired on Fine Living Network, a sister to Food Network which is about to be humanely destroyed and transformed into the Cooking Channel.

After “Emeril Live” ended production, Emeril moved on to Planet Green, a low-profile sister to Discovery Channel, with a show called “Emeril Green.” It was more instructional in nature, like “The Essense of Emeril” had been back on Food Network, and without any live audience or catch phrases.

But if you miss the old Emeril, the Emeril bouncing around and having fun in front of a live audience, he’s back. He’s on the ION network (formerly PAX), which may either be an over-the-air local channel or a cable/satellite channel depending on where you live and on where you get your TV signal.

Emeril now has a powerful patron: in the past year or two, the media part of his empire has been bought by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. (Emeril’s restaurants are still a separate company.) So the new show is produced by Martha’s company.

“The Emeril Lagasse Show” is something like “Emeril Live,” but from what little I’ve seen it has more of an emphasis on guests and includes non-food segments. It’s almost like a combination talk show and cooking show. Emeril seems just a little lower-key than on the old show, but it’s still recognizably him.

Like the older show, the new one has a live audience and a live band (this time led by Dave Koz, instead of Emeril’s Food Network sidekick “Doc” Gibbs).

Another difference: the new show is weekly, not daily. It airs on Sunday nights.