Be Part Of It - ITV To Close Down CITV In Fall/Autumn 2023

Today is a very sad and sombre day for the children's television industry. After four decades on the air, British terrestrial TV company ITV plc. has announced that it will fully shut down its iconic children's network powerhouse CITV in Autumn 2003 in late September or early October and replace it with a new streaming network ITV Kids on its recently relaunched streaming platform ITVx.

When Matthew Kelly (Stars in Their Eyes, You Bet!) kicked off the very first broadcast of CITV from the rocketship studio in Birmingham four decades ago, the network didn't know back then how influential of a global success the 15-hour UK kids telly pwoerhouse would eventually become. In the years and decades since, the channel hasproduced banger after banger of TV nostalgia, including Thomas & Friends, Sooty; one of the three longest-running preschool series in the world lasting for 63 years from 1955-2018 with Harry & Matthew Corbett and Richard Cadell, Engie Benjy with Ant & Dec, the legendary global smash hit icon that is Art Attack and Finders Kepers UK with Neil Buchanan, HOW with Fred Dineage, Boohbah, Rosie & Jim, Tots TV, Rainbow with Charles Geoffrey Heyes, Wizardora, ZZZap!, Fun House with Pat Sharp, On Safari with exotic Christopher Biggins, Eliminator and Jungle Run with Michael Underwood, You Can Do Magic, The Quick Tricks Show, Brilliant Creatures, Fingertips, Globo Loco and Tricky TV with Stephen Mulhern, the short-lived game Petsswap and Pump It Up with Dave Benson Phillips and Fearne Cotton, newspaper drama Press Gang, sci-fi game show Knightmare with Hugo Myatt and countdown show Top 10 of Everything. The network has also given home to many Saturday morning blocks of variety shows including No. 73, Get Fresh, Motormouth, What's Up Doc?, Gimme 5!, Ghost Train, Wacaday, Wide Awake Club, Scratchy & Co, Ministry of Mayhem, Scrambled! and SM:TV Live/CD:UK with Ant & Dec and Cat Deeley.

When the last of its golden shows got cancelled in 2006-2007, the channel has been going into making a lot of terrible cringe quality content in the last 15 years having the stupidity to once again drop in-vision studio hosts and continuity and go back to out-of-vision with announcer Tim Dann ever since. The Studio B of Gas Street Studios in Birmingham and the 1998-2006 oval shaped logo was the true end of the network's golden era. The only good content aside from the preschool programs that the network has made in the years since includes Horrid Henry, HOW reboot, Thunderbirds Are GO!, Mr. bean: The Animated Series and the most recently Saturday block Scrambled! which got axed in April 2021.

CITV unfortunately isn't the only channel in danger as its long-serving centennial rival CBBC is also on the verge of getting axed to the cutting room floor and being shut down as later as 2025. This comes as another way of BBC and ITV trying to save money and trying to get the license fees refunded and still in another long-serving epidemic to make the internet accessible for all British communities.

However, fear not, CITV will still exist in some way extent shape or form with the CITV strand moving to weekday mornings on ITV2 in September while CBeebies and CBBC programs continue to air every Saturday morning from 6:00am-9:35am on BBC2.

RIP CITV. Thank you to Matthew Kelly, Steve Ryde and all the team on this network past and present who have turned this channel into what it is today. This network will be dearly missed.