[tellyblues]

I think it’d be far more appropriate to have some sort of anniversary show on ITV1 or another of the grown-ups’ channels.

CITV’s audience aren’t going to care about the anniversary, and would almost certainly prefer that their favourite shows aren’t replaced with Rainbow or Supergran.

Whilst personally I enjoyed the Old Skool Weekend, it did seem rather unfair that the channel’s regular viewers had to put up with a nostalgia-fest aimed at their parents’ generation.

The best bet of an old CITV show appearing on ITV1 is Epic Gameshow doing Fun House but they'd do a terrible job of that as well.

[Spencer]

I think it’d be far more appropriate to have some sort of anniversary show on ITV1 or another of the grown-ups’ channels.

CITV’s audience aren’t going to care about the anniversary, and would almost certainly prefer that their favourite shows aren’t replaced with Rainbow or Supergran.

Whilst personally I enjoyed the Old Skool Weekend, it did seem rather unfair that the channel’s regular viewers had to put up with a nostalgia-fest aimed at their parents’ generation.

Aah it was cool though I think I kept the original recording somewhere all those wonderful endcaps and drama Rama idents it was just so much cooler but agreed it’s all lost on todays children.

Oh yes, don't get me wrong, I loved it... it's just I doubt much of the channel's intended audience did.

[Brekkie]

I think the difference now to a decade ago is the afternoon slot is something much of the young adult audience won't now remember, never mind the child audience. Even the parents of the CITV audience today likely grew up with the channel rather than the slot, so arguably marking the anniversary of something that ended around 17 years ago makes little sense.

In addition as time passes and the big successes of your existence are from longer and longer ago the inclination is to draw less attention to how much less of an impact the brand has made in recent years. Think that is part of the reason the C4 40th was relatively low key compared to the 25th and 30th - it's more celebrating a bygone era than what the service is today.

[Neil Jones]

Well yes but of course today's audience (Freeview wise) has access to at least five children's channels, one of which is 24/7 broadcast and while the rest only air during the daytime, finishing at various times between 7pm and 10pm, you have access to the on demand catalogue from them all as well. If you have access to other platforms like Now, Sky or Virgin, well you have more children's channels (and content) than you can realistically watch.

A far cry from the days when your only output for that material was typically weekdays between 3:30pm and 5:10pm/5:35pm on two networks (with the Saturday morning magazines and what went out on Sundays as well), and if you missed it, well it was tough basically.

Of course in twenty years who's to say we'll still have on-demand as we do now? What we now know as on demand/streaming was never thought to be possible back in the 80s, but here we are.

[Brekkie]

Although I still think we probably got more new content in the 90s than there is today, and arguably higher quality content too. Has CITV had a scripted drama/comedy since My Parents are Aliens?


Going to contradict myself here but as much as I understand the logic for CITV itself not marking the anniversary I think a FAST channel of classic content to mark the 40th anniversary would have been an easy win for ITVX at a time they're throwing everything into promoting it.

[WhoOdyssey]

Although I still think we probably got more new content in the 90s than there is today, and arguably higher quality content too.    Has CITV had a scripted drama/comedy since My Parents are Aliens?


Going to contradict myself here but as much as I understand the logic for CITV itself not marking the anniversary I think a FAST channel of classic content to mark the 40th anniversary would have been an easy win for ITVX at a time they're throwing everything into promoting it.

‘Bottom Knocker Street’ with Phil Jupitus comes to mind, although that was around 10 years ago now. 

I suppose the “recent” Sooty series counts too, although that has since moved to ITVBe’s pre-school slot.

[Hybrid]

Although I still think we probably got more new content in the 90s than there is today, and arguably higher quality content too.    Has CITV had a scripted drama/comedy since My Parents are Aliens?


Going to contradict myself here but as much as I understand the logic for CITV itself not marking the anniversary I think a FAST channel of classic content to mark the 40th anniversary would have been an easy win for ITVX at a time they're throwing everything into promoting it.

Ted's Top Ten, a comedy created by Andy Watts (the creator of MPAA) started airing from December of 2021 on the channel.

[Neil Jones]

MPAA was quite a good show and it ran for years, easily one of CITV's most successful shows. Until they decided to reboot it for what turned out to be the final series and... oh well. Not the first time that's happened.

Don't think its on the CITV channel now though and probably hasn't been for a while, probably because its older than the target audience, although it never stopped Tracey Beaker!

[James2001]

The CITV channel actually stopped repeating the final series after not particularly long, it really was quite poor.

While it's understandable they had to move things on because of the ages of the kids, they should have ended it in 2005, it was a very strong ending. And if they did have to continue it, they still didn't have to wipe Brian & Sophie's memories and make it effectively an entirely new show, even Brian and Sophie behaved very differently.

[L1_]

The CITV channel actually stopped repeating the final series after not particularly long, it really was quite poor.

While it's understandable they had to move things on because of the ages of the kids, they should have ended it in 2005, it was a very strong ending. And if they did have to continue it, they still didn't have to wipe Brian & Sophie's memories and make it effectively an entirely new show, even Brian and Sophie behaved very differently.

I remember at the time people speculated it was possibly an attempt to kill the show, and I can see why. MPAA was very popular, and the last series didn't compare at all. IIRC the final series was only on the Channel aswell, not on ITV1?