[mumu03]

Back when I was younger CITV was great, Fun house, MPAA, ZZZap etc. that 1998-2005 period was exquisite.

BUT CITV hasn't really been great since the ban on junk food advertising 2005. They were limited as they could not set up CITV Ltd which would allow them to properly exploit IP and merchandise the same way BBC WW did with Teletubbies etc.

The channel was late to market, originally envisaged in 2001 as a partnership with NICK, INK never was realised and after mutual backing away the CITV channel launched in 2006. By this time it was placed at the end of the kids section on Cable and Satellite, On Freeview it was placed 3rd. The audience targeting 6-12 narrowed its audience when it previously under 16.

In fairness, I'm not aware of the channel being mapped out as a partnership with Nickelodeon as far back as 2001 - prior to the latter part of the year CITV still had most of its budget intact, and it wasn't until the first big cuts came in November that the initial plans for a digital channel to get a head start on CBBC were cancelled.

Indeed, those cuts were why ex-Nick UK, TVS, and Meridian children's head Janie Grace was suggesting the "CITV Ltd" that never went through either. Which was partly due to her departure the following year, ahead of Grace's predecessor as children's controller Nigel Pickard becoming overall ITV programmes director. Pickard, despite commissioning lot more live content like SMTV and other popular shows mentioned, had arguably dropped the ball in other areas before her - e.g. pitching the strand even younger than ever, with the axing of Children's Ward and other dramas.

So ironically, despite Grace having came to CITV from Nick (and also introducing a raft of its shows in the place of originals), the whole "ITV Nickelodeon Kids" scheme came around after her in 2004. And this was just before in-house children's productions were culled entirely, but the CITV brand had already started to be devalued by ITV that year with the loss of live in-vision pres (again), all of its attendant viewer interactivity, etc.

In fact if they'd kept that around in some form (like the Beeb has managed to for CBBC after all these years), I could easily imagine more dissent towards the scrapping of the CITV brand altogether now, as well as less of a case for it besides its recognition and connection with nearly everyone here besides children. But they didn't.