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CITV

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File:Citv channel.png
CITV Logo

This article is about CITV, ITV's children's television brand. For Global Edmonton (Canada), see CITV-TV.

CITV (short for Children's ITV) is the brand name used for the majority of children's television output on the British Channel 3 television stations, including ITV1, breakfast broadcaster GMTV and the ITV plc-owned CITV Channel as well as non ITV plc owned regions. One of its famous presenters is ex-nude model *Gail McKenna. The flagship CITV strand is currently broadcast on weekday afternoons across all ITV regional stations (normally referred to as ITV1) between 15:00 and 16:30, and also on Saturday mornings between 06:00 and 11:30. It also has its own channel on Freeview channel 75, Telewest channel 734, NTL channel 76 or 602, Homechoice and Sky Digital channel 624. CITV began on 3rd January 1983.

The Past

Produced by Central Independent Television, Children's ITV first went on air in January 1983, and consisted of programmes with recorded links in between, initially featuring a different presenter each month. Recorded links continued until 1987, when it started to be broadcast live, echoing Children's BBC which had started two years earlier. Before being known as Children's ITV the timeslot was briefly branded as Watch IT!

In 1989, a company called Stonewall Productions won the contract to produce Children's ITV, and it did so until April 1991, when Central won it back.

In February 1993, in-vision presentation was dropped, with Steven Ryde providing the voiceovers for out-of-vision links featuring a wide variety of animated characters. A few months later the Children's ITV name was changed to the more youth-friendly Citv, having been used in some form or another since the previous year (the arrangement of upper- and lower-case letters matches that of the logo used at the time). However, the "Children's" wasn't removed from the logo until September 1996, the same month a Digital On-screen Graphic (DOG) was introduced.

File:Citv 98.jpg
The CiTV logo between May 1998 & September 2003

This continued until May 1998, when a new in-vision service was introduced, fronted by presenters Stephen Mulhern and Danielle Nicholls. A new logo was introduced, and henceforth the service had been referred to as CiTV (until another new logo was introduced in March 2006 and the service became simply known as CITV). The studio space available was initially very small, but in September 1999, CITV started sharing studio space with Central News, allowing room for a large stylised set created by a company called Dorans Propmakers. The service remained fundamentally the same, with occasional changes to the set and presenter lineup, until September 2004, when an out-of-vision service was re-introduced, most likely due to budget cuts laid down by ITV management.

File:CiTV Logo September 2004 - May 2006.jpg
The CiTV logo between September 2003 & March 2006

The Present

CITV is broadcast weekdays between 3.00pm and 4.30pm (originally 5.00pm) and Saturdays between 9.25am and 11.30am, and also on Sundays between 9.25am and 10.30am on ITV1. Also it has its own Channel. As of the new channel's launch, Channel 3 breakfast broadcaster GMTV now also uses the CITV brand across its children's output between 6am and 9.25 on GMTV1, GMTV2 and the CITV Channel. The ITV1 weekday afternoon service from CITV was also updated to reflect the new look as of March 13.

With the new logo the lowercase 'i' was dropped. Now the title is simply 'CITV'.

The Future

A recent Media Guardian article suggests that the future of CITV on ITV1 is in doubt. The service has already been reduced to 1 hour and 30 minutes per weekday and has been pushed back to end at 4.30pm. (This slot has been axed for the duration of the FIFA World Cup and many people are doubting it's return come the end of the cup) Also, saturday morning show Holly and Stephen's Saturday Showdown has been axed from it's ITV1 slot and was replaced by a cookery show. This came into effect at 9.25am on June 10, 2006.

Another Media Guardian article says that Granada Kids is closing, and ITV won't be making its own children's programming any more. Digital Spy quote from that article: http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=398588&page=2&pp=25

Presenters

Presenters on CITV over the years have included:

Saturday Morning

Over the years CITV's flagship show has aired on Saturday mornings, currently the show is Holly and Stephen's Saturday Showdown which is an updated version of Ministry of Mayhem. As of Saturday 10th June 2006 the show will be exclusive to the CITV Channel, continuing the recession of Children's output on the ITV terrestrial service (Due to the World Cup, practically no children's programming will air on ITV (except GMTV Strands and Sunday morning) and all other children's programming will be aired on the CITV channel during the world cup)

Saturday Showdown's predecessor was SMTV Live , which launched the presenting careers of Ant and Dec and Cat Deeley.

Saturday Morning shows

  • Tiswas (1974-1982)
  • Number 73 (1982-1988)
  • Get Fresh (1986-1988)
  • Motormouth (1988-1992)
  • Ghost Train (1990-1992)
  • What's Up, Doc? (1992-1995)
  • Gimme 5 (1993-1994)
  • Scratchy & Co. (1995-1998)
  • Telegantic Megavision (1996)
  • WOW (1996)
  • Tricky - The Dragon (1996)
  • Mashed (1997-1998)
  • SMTV Live (1998-2003)
  • Ministry of Mayhem (January 2004-December 2005)
  • Holly & Stephens Saturday Showdown (January 2006-) (Note This is a revised version of Ministry of Mayhem, the show will end on the CITV Channel in late June)

For the full list see: List of CITV programmes

GMTV

Since 11 March 2006, the breakfast broadcasting company GMTV, which is partially owned by ITV plc and shares its frequencies, has also adopted CITV branding, although its children's programming remains technically distinct from that produced by ITV plc in that it is bought and controlled separately by the breakfast station, so is not 'True CITV'. The use of the CITV logo and graphics (a move previously avoided by GMTV) was adopted in order to simplify the simulcast of GMTV's programmes on the CITV Channel, which is a joint timeshare venture between the two broadcasters. Where kids' output is not simulcast, GMTV tends to retain its own GMTV Kids branding, especially in the case of its Preschool programing.

See also

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