Abacat's What If's/CITV

**CITV** is a British children's television channel, morning programming block on ITV2 and afternoon programming block on ITV1. The channel broadcast brand new content, programmes from CITV's archive and acquisitions daily for 24 hours.

CITV, then Children's ITV, launched on 3 January 1983 as a late afternoon programming block on the ITV network for children aged 6–12. It replaced the earlier Watch It! branding and introduced networked in-vision continuity links between programmes. These links were originally pre-recorded from a small London studio up until 1987, when Central won the contract to produce live links from their Birmingham studios. These links moved to Manchester in 2004, and the ITV1 and ITV2 timeslots remain live to this day.

Sam Homewood, Robyn Richford, Vick Hope, Luke Franks, Shereen Cutkelvin and Sam MacGregor are CITV's current presenters.

CITV has an in-house production unit, *CITV Productions*, which also includes animation studio Cosgrove Hall.

The channel primarily competes with CBBC, CBeebies, Cartoon Network, Boing, Nickelodeon and Disney Channel and is aimed at children aged between 6 and 18.

## History

### Watch It! (1972-83)

The notion of networking children's continuity was first suggested within ITV as far back as the late 1960s, but with fierce regional identities prevalent – including scheduling, presentation, and programming – the idea stalled until the early 1970s, when the IBA began to express concern that most ITV shows for children were not consistent or fully networked. On Thursdays, the ITV regions were able to broadcast whatever programmes they wished. In August 1972, ITV announced its first concerted effort at a more coherent approach to children's output, with the introduction of the new Watch It! block four days a week (with the Thursday break intact) from 4:30 pm to 5:15 pm, after the IBA continued to emphasize issues. All programmes were networked and presented as a pre-recorded programme from on-duty ATV announcers.

Shortly after the start of new franchises in 1982, some ITV stations raised concerns that Watch It! had not gone far enough to address previous concerns. Central's Controller of Children's Programmes, Lewis Rudd, suggested a different approach to the presentation method. As a result, the Central Promotions Department came up with the initial concept for Children's ITV. The new look was devised, and links between programmes were pre-recorded using presenters drawn from the constituent programmes. The networking arrangements were similar to those already in place for the transmission of schools programmes – the links were played out from Central and the component programmes came from the supplying companies.

### Relaunch as Children's ITV (1983)

Children's ITV went to air on Monday 3 January 1983, between 4:00 pm and 5:15 pm every weekday afternoon, the first 15 minutes being filled by a repeat of one of the preschool programmes shown at lunchtime the same day. Initially featuring a different presenter each month (usually from children's television), the links were broadcast completely live and initially presented by Sally James and Matthew Kelly. They would be joined each month by rotating presenters from different Children's ITV programmes. The new live format gave brought a great deal of flexibility; timings could be altered, schedule changes reflected, and breakdowns dealt with in a continuous manner. Initially presented from a spaceship style set, it was replaced in 1985 by a stylized set known as Network Control, which allowed the presenters to be joined by guests in the studio for interviews. The exterior of this fictitious location also featured in the animations and stings.

Former Central announcers Gary Terzza and Debbie Shore replaced Kelly and James on 13 July 1987, presented live links from a set built to look like a transmitting station. Although the studio space was small, the designers' use of a plate glass mirror gave the effect of a much larger set. The new live format gave brought a great deal of flexibility; timings could be altered, schedule changes reflected, and breakdowns dealt with in a continuous manner. In 1988, the format was refreshed again with a new single presenter, Mark Granger, replacing Terzza and Shore, in a smaller, more basic studio set which included in-vision monitors showing the VT clock of the next scheduled item.

Another new look was launched on 9 April 1991, using only one regular presenter, Tommy Boyd. During this new era, greater importance was being placed throughout television on promotions (trailers) as a way of effectively detailing areas of the schedule to viewers who might not know about them. Boyd was later joined by Glenn Kinsey and from 1992, Steven Ryde joined the presenting team as Kinsey presented a new morning edition of Children's ITV for the newly launched ITV2.

Beginning in March 1994, Thames had launched their own children's channel known as Thames Kids. The channel showcased children's programming from Thames and other ITV franchisees including Granada Television, Central Television, Scottish Television and Yorkshire Television, short films from the BBC library, as well as programmes acquired from American and overseas distributors. Shows included *The Raggy Dolls*, *Rosie & Jim*, *Tots TV*, *The Berenstain Bears*, *Abadaba*, *Tickle on the Tum*, *Willo the Wisp*, *The Legends of Treasure Island* and *Worzel Gummidge*. The channel's presenters were Josie D'Arby, Mark Speight, Dave Benson Phillips, Rick Adams and Lucy Alexander.

The channel only achieved minimal ratings in it's history and therefore in 1997 it was announced that the channel would be closed and transformed into a new CITV digital TV channel. The new channel would take on the more relevant parts of Thames Kids' programme library, and in-vision presenters would make a comeback, mixed together with the programmes and presentation team of the CITV blocks on ITV & ITV2. Josie, Mark, Dave, Rick and Lucy remained, and were joined by new hirings including Naomi Wilkinson, Angellica Bell and Jamie Rickers. The Children's Channel was also acquired by ITV, as owners Flextech were planning to close the channel down. It's programmes would move to the new CITV channel.

CITV was launched as a digital television channel in it's own right on 1st November 1997, launching with a special edition of the short-lived *Tricky*. The new channel would simulcast CITV's output on the main ITV network from 3.30 pm to 5.10 pm, followed by a daily magazine show, *Live At Ten Past Five*. More US acquisitions had to be bought to fill potential gaps in the schedule, and there was repeats of past CITV programmes as well. Some programmes also returned with extended runs, such as *The Ward*. The channel was also given the library of children's programmes broadcast on Sunrise, which included the vast majority of Disney content as well as the rights to broadcast Saban productions *Mighty Morphin Power Rangers* and *Big Bad Beetleborgs*.

A new in-vision service was introduced on Monday 25 May 1998 by the newly appointed controller of Children's ITV output, Nigel Pickard. Steven Ryde became a producer with Stephen Mulhern and Danielle Nicholls becoming the new presentation team. A new logo was introduced, designed by Aaron Camm (with traces of predecessors), broadcast from Studio B at Central's Gas Street Studios. A new CITV website was also launched which included full information on all current programmes. The first afternoon of the new look CITV featured *Potamus Park*, *The Caribou Kitchen*, *Bimble's Bucket*, *House of Toons*, *Fun House* and *The Big Bang*. As part of a new scheduling strategy, the afternoon schedule was repeated in it's entirety the following morning on ITV2, in reverse order, and presented by Jamie Rickers and Josie D'Arby.

### Expansion into digital television (1998-2001)

CITV was rebranded on 20 January 2003 with a new logo that brought the channel and strand alike in line with the parent ITV brand. The same day saw CITV launch it's first news programme - *The Rundown*, designed to compete with the BBC's *Newsround* programme, produced by ITN and presented initially by Becky Jago, Matthew Price and Simon Thomas, joining from Newsround and *Blue Peter* respectively.

Sometime in early 2004, CITV announced it's intention to step into operating sibling channels - with particular targets being a preschool channel, cartoon channel and teen channel. Plans to launch a teen-oriented CITV channel were put on hold after ITV acquired Flextech in mid-2004, which brought them control of Trouble. Not particularly long after ITV's purchase of Flextech, they phased out the Tiny Living block on Living TV and moved it's programmes to the preschool section of the CITV channel which ran weekdays from 9am to 3pm. Many of Trouble's programmes also began to be repeated on the CITV channel (as well as on ITV2) in evening time slots but the channel was retained.

CITV was rebranded on 1st November 2005 as part of a network-wide relaunch of ITV co-inciding with the rebranding of men's channel Men & Motors as male-skewed comedy and entertainment channel ITV4. The rebrand saw the separation of "preschool", "tween" and "teen" programmes with three distinct colour schemes, light sky blue for preschool, hot red for pre-teen programmes (animation and sitcoms) and lime green for teen and young adult programmes (usually reality and drama).

CITV Toon, a separate channel dedicated to animated programmes, was launched on Saturday 11 March 2006.

Preschool programmes were finally given their own channel on Monday 2nd November 2009, known as Mini CITV. Preschool content remained on the CITV channel but now divided into three two hour chunks on weekdays, from 5-7am, 9-11am and 1-3pm, with the 9-11am slot dropped on weekends and school holidays.

The introduction of a new logo for the ITV network on 1st January 2013 led to a revamp to CITV's presentation with a new speech bubble-style logo that remained for exactly six years before a new look (retaining the 2013 logo) was launched on 1st January 2019.

The latest branding for CITV made it's debut at 4pm on Monday 14th November 2022, once again on the same day that ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, ITV5, ITV News and ITV Sport were relaunched with a new unified "multiverse" look. CITV was the first chanel to rebrand, with the others not following suit until 5pm.

## Current programming

### Domestic

#### Animation

* Mr. Bean: The Animated Series (2002-present)
* Horrid Henry (2006-present)
* Thunderbirds Are Go (2014-present)
* Danger Mouse (2015-present)
* The Rubbish World of Dave Spud (2019-present)
* Lloyd of The Flies (2022-present)

#### Comedy

* Underground (2018-present)
* Ted's Top 10 (2021-present)
* Getting In (2022-present)
* Round the Bend (2023-present)

#### Drama

* Children's Ward (1989-present)
* Glory (2017-present)
* Phoenix Rise (2023-present)
* Silverpoint (2023-present)

#### Entertainment, reality and gameshows

* The Big Top 40 (2007-present)
* The Crush (2021-present - simulcast with ITV1)
* Don't Unleash the Beast (2021-present)
* The Voice Kids (2017-present - simulcast with ITV1)
* Mini Movies (2021-present)
* Project Z (2019-present)
* Saturday Starts Here (2021-present - simulcast with ITV1)
* Spy School (2018-present)
* Swipe It! with Joe Tasker (2022-present)
* Who Wants to Be A Mini Millionaire? (2001-2005; 2022-present)

#### Factual

* Magpie (2006-present)
* HOW (2020-present)

### Acquired

#### Animated

* 50/50 Heroes
* Adventure Time (2012-present)
* Alvinnn!!! and the Chipmunks (2017-present)
* The Amazing World of Gumball (2015-present)
* Animaniacs (2021-present)
* Apple & Onion (2019-present)
* Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures (2020-present)
* Barbie: It Takes Two (2023-present)
* Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! (2017-present)
* Ben 10 (2018-present)
* Big City Greens (2020-present)
* The Boss Baby: Back in Business (2020-present)
* Buck and Buddy
* Chuck's Choice (2018-present)
* Craig of The Creek (2020-present)
* Dorg Van Dango (2022-present)
* DC Super Hero Girls (2020-present)
* Dodo (2022-present)
* The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants (2020-present)
* The Ghost and Molly McGee (2023-present)
* Gravity Falls (2014-present)
* Grizzy & The Lemmings (2017-present)
* Hamster & Gretel (2023-present)
* Lego City Adventures (2019-present)
* Lego Dreamzzz (2023-present)
* Lego Friends: Girls on A Mission (2018-present)
* Mighty Mike (2020-present)
* Milo Murphy's Law (2018-present)
* Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir (2018-present)
* Mr. Magoo (2019-present)
* My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (2011-present)
* My Little Pony: Make Your Mark (2022-present)
* My Little Pony: Pony Life (2020-present)
* Oggy and The Cockroaches (1999-present)
* Phineas and Ferb (2009-present)
* The Powerpuff Girls (2016) (2017-present)
* Raven's Home (2019-present)
* Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2012-present)
* Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? (2020-present)
* She-Ra and The Princesses of Power (2020-present)
* The Smurfs (2023-present)
* SpongeBob SquarePants (2002-present)
* Star vs. The Forces of Evil (2017-present)
* Steven Universe (2015-present)
* Taffy (2022-present)
* Talking Tom and Friends (2018-present)
* Teen Titans Go! (2015-present)
* Transformers: EarthSpark (2023-present)
* We Baby Bears (2023-present)
* We Bare Bears (2020-present)

#### Live action

* Are You Afraid of The Dark? (2021-present)
* Big Top Academy (2019-present)
* Bunk'd (2019-present)
* Detention Adventure (2020-present)
* Find Me in Paris (2018-present)
* First Day (2020-present)
* iCarly (2009-present)
* The Inbestigators (2020-present)
* Overlord and The Underwoods (2021-present)
* The PM's Daughter (2022-present)
* Side Hustle (2022-present)
* The Thundermans (2016-present)
* Victorious (2012-present)
* Young Dylan (2021-present)

#### Anime

* Bakugan: Evolutions (2022-present)
* Bakugan: Legends (2023-present)
* Dragon Ball Z (2013-present)
* Dragon Ball Super (2016-present)
* Inazuma Eleven (2012-present)
* Pokémon (1999-present)