CiTV
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CiTV.gif
CiTV (short for Children's ITV) is ITV's brand for children's television output on its primary television channel known as ITV1. The main CiTV segment is broadcast on weekday afternoons, currently between 15:30 and 17:00. CiTV began in January 1983, with Matthew Kelly as its first presenter.
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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.
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 (the arrangement of upper- and lower-case letters matches that of the logo used at the time).
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 has been referred to 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.
The Present
The current out-of-vision service is produced by Granada Television, to where it was relocated in early 2005 due to the stripping-down of facilities at Central. It is broadcast during the hours of 15:30 to 17:00 each weekday. It features continuity voiced by an as-yet-unidentified voiceover artist. There are weekly competitions which go under the title of "My Prizes are Amazing", a play on the title of popular children's comedy My Parents are Aliens.
The Future
Due to a recent perceived decline in the quality and production values of ITV output, it seems unlikely that an in-vision service will resume any time soon. However, ITV have recently been in talks with children's broadcaster Nickelodeon about the possibility of a combined children's television service which would be broadcast simultaneously on ITV1 and Nickelodeon each weekday afternoon. If this were to happen, the CiTV service would likely be rebranded to INK, a contraction of "ITV Nickelodeon Kids". Ironically, this name was devised by Central.
Programmes
Popular programmes shown on CiTV over the years have included, in alphabetical order:- Allsorts/Gigglish Allsorts
- Animaniacs
- Art Attack
- The Book Tower
- Button Moon
- Children's Ward
- Count Duckula
- Dangermouse
- Do It
- Dramarama
- Finders Keepers
- Fraggle Rock
- Fun House
- How 2
- Knightmare
- Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies
- Mike and Angelo
- My Parents are Aliens
- Pokémon
- Press Gang
- The Raggy Dolls
- Rainbow
- Razzmatazz
- ReBoot
- The Riddlers
- Rosie and Jim
- Sabrina, the Teenage Witch
- Scooby-Doo (multiple variants)
- Sooty & Co. (multiple variants)
- Supergran
- Terrahawks
- Tickle on the Tum
- Tots TV
- Wizadora
- Woof
- ZZZap
Presenters
Presenters on CiTV over the years have included:
- Matthew Kelly (January 1983)
- Isla St Clair (February 1983)
- Derek Griffiths (one month[?] in 1983)
- Tommy Boyd (first time; one month[?] in 1983)
- Stu Francis (Mid 1980s[?])
- Gary Terzza (1987 - 1988)
- Debbie Shore (1987 - 1988)
- Mark Granger (1988 - 1989)
- Andi Peters (Summer 1988)
- Jeanne Downs (1989 - April 1991)
- Jerry Foulkes (1989 - April 1991)
- Clive Warren (1989 - April 1991)
- "Scally" (dog puppet; 1989 - April 1991)
- Tommy Boyd (second time; April 1991 - February 1993)
- Glenn Kinsey (mornings and Decembers only; Summer 1991 - December 1992)
- Steven Ryde (voice only; February 1993 - May 1998)
- Stephen Mulhern (May 1998 - August 2002)
- Danielle Nicholls (May 1998 - December 2001)
- Tom Darville (January 2000 - December 2001)
- Andrea Green (January 2000 - Late[?] 2000)
- David Leon (September 2001 - December 2002)
- Leigh Morrison (September 2001 - December 2002)
- Leah Charles (September 2001 - December 2003)
- Michael Underwood (August 2002 - December 2003)
- Tim Dixon (January 2003 - Mid[?] 2003)
- Andy Jaye (January 2004 - September 2004)
- Laura Jaye (January 2004 - September 2004)
- Tim[?] (voice only; September 2004 onwards)
Saturday Mornings
9.25am on Saturday mornings has traditionally been the slot for CiTV's flagship entertainment programme. Over the years these have included:
- Tiswas
- Number 73
- Get Fresh
- What's Up Doc?
- Scratchy & Co.
- WOW
- Tricky
- Mashed
- SMTV Live
- Ministry of Mayhem
See also
External link
- The official CiTV website (http://www.citv.co.uk/)
- Watched It - a site containing a wealth of information about past programmes and presenters on both CiTV and its rival, CBBC (http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/1011/)
CITV is also the callsign for a Global station in Edmonton, Alberta. See CITV.