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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.

It was the early multichannel era. 2001 would have been when Carlton (who closed their kids channel in 2000) and Granada was running ITV Digital but with that in difficulties and ending May 2002 and an advertising recession. Perhaps not with nickelodeon at that point but certainly under consideration. but this article mentions it plans were dropped - www.theguardian.com  - perhaps I should have put it as "Originally envisaged in 2001, then as a partnership with NICK, INK never was realised."

I'd guess you would have to treat the channel separately to the afternoon slot on ITV1 which was then protected by its licence requirements.