CiTV Presentation

It may not have been, but it was clearly of interest to young viewers and they would talk about it like they would programmes on GMTV and TVam, or indeed any adult programmes that may have been of interest. I remember the day of the first ITV Chart Show in 1989, Neil Buchanan went behind the scenes for Motormouth. It was no different to the Broom Cupboard presenters pointing people to Top of the Pops, which they did.

Something I came across here, quite interesting from December 2003. A "CITV1" trailer for films they were showing over the Christmas period. Using the "C" from the CITV logo and that year's CITV Christmas graphics, but with the ITV1 logo instead, seems quite unusual!



And also with the thing about whether CD:UK was considered part of CITV or not, they did have the CITV URL on their endcap.


And talking about The Chart Show, I always considered it superior to CD:UK! Was sad when it got axed.

Here we go, does anybody remember this, from 1997?



An awards ceremony meets Panto. I'm sure that's Shane Richie arguing with Timmy Mallett at 5:30, isn't it?
There are three parts on YouTube, the final part isn't on YouTube sadly. This ran for two years, 1997 and 8 according to Timmy Mallett's website.

I remember Timmy towers which also had Mark Speight.

There were CITV awards in 1996 too, don't think there was a panto element to them though. I seem to remember it having a fairground slide that the winners came down to collect their award.

Mark Speight didn't exclusively tie himself to ITV or the BBC if I remember correctly, was he freelance? He would quite often appear on both sides in various programmes, such as Smart for the BBC, Scratchy & Co for ITV and Timmy Towers, also for CITV, and later See It Saw It for CBBC. Great shame what happened to Speight, lot of shows in the meantime since 2008 he'd have been a good host for.

He was also in other BBC programme dealing with bullying etc

All I remember from that awful point is how Newsround dealt with it, ( there was a clip on line but has since disappeared) How he died from a broken heart.

Here's the Timmy Towers Summer Special from the day CiTV relaunched in 1998, and the link before it:


Mark is the "Abominable No Man" in this. I remember it did season specials for a few years then had a normal series about 2001-2002. Also in it are Snug and Cozy, who had their own series on CITV in 1997.

I seem to remember that the CITV Awards started out of a birthday special called "Simply The Best".

I remember it was called Simply The Best because they played a sting which sang it at every available opportunity.

Yes! It was a week long celebration for ITV's 40th birthday so must have been 1995. The week of 'simply the best' contained a presenter - Mal (possibly?) who visited the fake Goggle family for a week because they were The family who it was made out watched the most tv. It led up to CITV's celebration with the first CITV Awards which I remember as being straight presented awards. The awards returned for the next few years.
A rendition of the simply the best theme can be heard on at least one of the award videos with Santa being pulled across snow.

The goggle family also had a spin off comedy series called Gogglewatch.


As for that strange C - itv1 promo, it was even more strange as I'm sure that CITV didn't air over that Christmas. Leah & Michael had left by the last Friday. Andy & Gail didn't start until the first Monday afternoon of 2004. I'm not sure if there were any programmes aired with CITV idents, but I'm sure that there weren't.

In the October half term 2003 CITV aired in the morning for an hour (making up hours due to the rugby World Cup?), but this consisted of the ident, straight into a programme and the bumpers used to seperate. Strangely how some afternoons ended up going relying less on the presenters from the September relaunch.

From what I remember about Gogglewatch is that it ran for a whole week, being the links between programmes.

CITV didn't air over that Christmas, but children's programmes obviously did, which was the reason for the CITV1 branded promo. I remember it being mentioned on here, with the suggestion that it was the sign of things to come (as per our paranoia, particularly in that era!)

When you think about it, it's slightly odd that CITV went for so long without any ITV branding, but then that was perhaps an effort on Carlton's behalf to keep a separate CITV brand to exploit for itself?