ITV has announced that popular children's channel CITV will be taken off air after 40 years later this year. The channel says it is 'responding to the changing ways children and their parents are increasingly accessing content'.
A spokesman said: "The CITV broadcast channel will close in early Autumn."
It will be replaced by a streaming section on the ITVX on-demand platform.
The spokesman added: "ITV will maintain the LittleBe pre-school segment on ITVBe and will offer some children’s content in the early mornings on ITV2 from September with strong cross promotion to ITVX."
It comes as ITV prepares to launch ITVX Kids in July 2023, and rolling out across the school summer holiday period. It comes as viewing data shows that the average amount of broadcast TV minutes of kids TV channels watched by 4-15 year olds per week has declined by 62% since 2019.
The Kids ITVX homepage, accessed within a child-safe ITVX Kids profile, will bring together over 100 titles in a dedicated homepage, with over 1,000 hours of programming
The curated collections will feature a wide range of titles, including new programmes dropping monthly on the service, from July 2023. This new content will span a wide-range of genres and subjects including comedy, gameshows, live action, animation and sport and sourced from a broad spectrum of distributors from small Independents as well as regional UK suppliers.
Craig Morris, Managing Editor of ITVX said: “We’re really excited to launch this dedicated destination for kids on ITVX, which will be home to a wealth of content including new series, recognisable brands and existing favourites for a range of ages, all in one child-safe area, with editorial curation to guide viewing. The wealth of content will be available to stream for free, with the option for parents to choose ad free viewing, through a subscription to ITVX Premium.”
The range of new shows will complement existing favourites, including Lloyd of the Flies, Lily’s Driftwood Bay, Claude, Mumfie, Mystery Lane and The Rubbish World of Dave Spud, which will also be available on ITVX Kids.
New episodes of The Rubbish World of Dave Spud are commissioned for broadcast in 2024 and they will be premiered on ITVX.
ITVX Kids will also have some much-loved British brands, including the animated series of Mr Bean, and for younger pre-school children, TeleTubbies Let's Go, Sooty and Bob The Builder amongst other titles. The ambition is for 100% of content to be subtitled on ITVX Kids, with around 20% of the content on ITVX Kids audio described, and the offering will also include British Sign Language original programming such as Mission Employable and Daremaster, produced by Signpost productions.
