The end of CITV...?

It is such a pitty because itv was such az good channel, with good ideas. Personally I think that the I.T.C. should never have allowed the consolidation of the company contractors. All of itv's England, Wales, and border childrens production output should nver have been allowed to be put in a situatino wher it could be cancelled by one company. Regional production should never have been put into a situation wher e it is now the gerkin of the McDonalds hamburger (if u exuse the relavent pun). In the inception of channel three, there were plenty of safegaurds put into place to insure the qualtiyt. Keep competition inside the network, P.S.B. responsiblities. Even Trident was forced to split. Channel three needs a turn around, before it is too late.

It wasn't ITC's fault. It was OFCOM's fault and the government for changing the laws within the industry.

In my opinion it is now too late for ITV to change its ways. As my signature advises, they are losing viewers who will not come back and they are losing advertising due to lower number of viewers. They have no ideas, no foresight and most importantly no guts due to their large number of pensions trusts shareholders who want quick returns/short term gains.

Again its the pressure of external businesses that are destroying an institution. Damn you the gvt and CBI !!!

D.e.a.r. g.o.d., h.e.s s.t.i.l.l. a.t. i.t.

As usual I agree that the end of CITV is nigh. It was only ten years ago when it was still top notch before sliding down in the later years. Great programmes, great presentation and great logo. I blame takeovers and consolidation but many disasters happened to ITV in 1998. First, the ITV logo changes, then the Central cake disappears as well. In 1999, ITN News is changed to the dreadful ITV News, the generic looks take place, ITV2 is launched and it still seems things are getting worse.



No need to have a major rant over it, just hope that it doesn't get worse. Besides I recall watching an episode of The Weakest Link where a contestant wanting to vote someone out and he did so by writing B.O.B.
This lead to Anne Robinson questioning him.

I just thought I'd point out that ITV do have a children's production unit. They announced that they are to close it, it didn't shut on the spot

It is currently making the new series of My Parents are Aliens

It is the only programme they are making now and it will soon wrap up. then what - its now effectively just a name with nothing else in the pipeline. Just like the wildlife/natural history unit in Bristol - its still there, JUST, but effectively in name only.

What are ITV to close/sell off next - Cosgrove Hall. I bet there are many conglomerates out there wanting to buy Cosgrove Hall (including Disney) as it is a real successful animation company.

Although most of us want CITV to show there back catalog of Great programmers, there just on question, who owns most of the back catalogue

I’m sure THAMES, there owners Fremantle Media own a good whack of there catalogue
Also wasn’t a lot of the 90’s show contracted out?

But who owns must of it?

All of Granada's children's programmes were made in-house, same with Central and TVS (now owned by an American company).

Cosgrove Hall stuff is weird - all programmes before being sold by Thames (to then then owners of Anglia/Meridian)are now owned by TalkbackThames (Fremantle Media part of the Bertlesman/RTL group) and could actually be shown on their TV station - five!. Everything else since then is owned by ITVplc, including the animations made for BBC, so effectively you could see a Cosgrove Hall animation made for BBC being shown on both CBBC and the CiTV channel!!!!!

But in 1998 they got a studio and presenters! That stayed the same with minor tweaks until a quite big refresh in 2000/Sep 99.Then it had another tweak in Sep 01 then in 2002 and it had a big relaunch with the black graphics and studio.In October it went back to something more similar to the old graphics and set.In September 2003 it was all shrunk and changed.Micheal Underwood and Leah Charles left in Dec and in January 2004 they had Andy Jaye on his own.It must have lost viewers by now.A couple of weeks later in came Gail McKenna and in March she was replaced by Laura Jaye.Then in September they lost all of that and replaced Swag with My Prizes are Amazing[eventually].

So in 1998 the presentation picked up,programmes had already started to go but there were new ones like Bernard's Watch,The Big Bang,The Worst Witch and The Quick Trick Show.Not forgetting SM:tv!
They offloaded gradually though and some good ones didn't last long[UP2U,Eliminator and Globo Loco had 2 series and Play the Game probably won't come back either].

I think the downfall of presentation was Sep 04 with some good idents like the mix ones but bad ones aswell.As for programmes i'd say the announcement of the Kids Productions stopping production.Is Art Attack likely to come back next year?

Art Attack isn't made by ITV Productions. I think it's still made by SMG Productions?

The Foundation (now part of RDF Media) for SMG (was originally a TVS production)

No, it is and was always made by Media Merchants which formed out from TVS. I think I'm write in saying the company was co-owned with Neil and Tim Edmunds who worked with him at TVS.

It was sold to Gullane which was in-turn taken over by Hit Entertainment who produce the show for SMG. So now you know.