The CITV channel will go off air in two weeks after a summer holiday campaign to transition viewers to ITVX.
- CITV replaced by new ITVX Kids, a new on-demand and live streaming area of ITVX.
- CITV’s last day will be Friday 1st September.
- The CITV brand – originally Children’s ITV – dates back to the 1980s.
Back in March, ITV promised an autumn switch-off for the CITV channel. Now, viewers are beginning to be informed of the exact switch-off date.
CITV’s final programme – The Rubbish World of Dave Spud – is scheduled to air at 8:30pm on Friday 1st September – before the channel closes for good at 9pm.
The CITV channel has been on air since 2006, initially broadcasting from 6am to 6pm, before extending to 9pm. But CITV started life in the 80s as an afternoon strand of children’s programmes on what became ITV1 (STV in Scotland), originally broadcast by Central TV from Birmingham. The launch of the CITV channel in 2006 allowed ITV1 to quickly drop afternoon children’s programmes. ITV1 has continued to showcase CITV programmes at the weekend.
But CITV, along with other children’s channels has experienced a fall in viewers in recent years as competition from streaming services has grown.
Migration to ITVX
During the summer, ITV boosted its children’s content on ITVX, officially launching its new dedicated children’s section. ITVX Kids consists not only of on-demand programmes. The broadcaster has also been running an ITVX Kids live streaming channel, joining the nearly 20 online-only channels on ITVX.
For the past month, ITV has increased promotion of ITVX Kids on CITV, encouraging viewers to migrate.
From September, ITV will continue to showcase some children’s programmes during breakfast time strands on ITV2. Pre-school programmes will continue as before on LittleBe, mornings on ITVBe.
ITVX Kids carries adverts, but parents and guardians with an ITVX Premium subscription can remove most ads.
Exact removal time may vary across platforms
- Viewers should check for updates from their TV platform operator. On some platforms, the removal of CITV will result in recordings from that channel being deleted.
- ITV hasn’t yet confirmed what will fill CITV’s broadcast capacity on Freeview. CITV currently timeshares bandwidth with ITV3+1.
Marc Thornham