ITV to launch kids channel

It was probably one of the better things ITV churned out before SM:tv came to life, even when they moved it into a studio, it wasn't as good, but it was still alright, they still had the interaction between Scratchy and that small kid in a suit.

ISTR ITV dropping Wow in favour of Scratchy and Co, as the bosses at LWT found that it was far cheaper to produce, when you think about it, all they needed were a few people, a CSO and some make up, you have your programme.

Wasn't it also one of the programmes that were supposed to be coming back after SM:tv finished it's initial run?

He-Man etc. weren't CITV productions - they just bought the rights to show them in the 80s. I don't think that the fact they were on ITV then is an indication they would be on an ITV channel now.

I suspect that ITV will mainly use the back catalogue of kids shows from the ex-Carlton and ex-Granada ITV companies to bulk out their schedule, with some acquisitions of cartoons as well (which could include He Man admittedly)

I would imagine that ITV want the channel to mainly appeal to modern-day kids, rather than kids who have now grown-up, so repeats of shows from the 80s and 70s will presumably be less likely than more recent shows from the 90s and 00s. (There aren't huge numbers of older repeats on CBBC/CBeebies for the same reason)

All supposition - but I'd be surprised if we suddenly saw Pipkins or Magpie pop up on it... (Though these may have been Thames productions anyway - so wouldn't be in the current ITV companies archives, so would need to be bought in anyway!)

What about Mashed with Jez Edwards? Wasn't that the programme directly before SMTV Live started? I vaguely remember them crossing over to the SMTV Live studio (well the corridor, they wanted to keep the set a secret) with Ant, Dec and Cat the week before.

I can't see them repeating SMTV and the like. What would be shown would probably be an edited highlights show minus cartoons, phone in competitions and music.

The two commercial Tiswas compilations would probably get an airing, if the channel decides to go down the retro route

What about repeating the following classic ITV Saturday morning shows?:-

Ghost Train
Motormouth
It's Not Just Saturday - not the best show in the world but all the more better as Dannii Minogue hosted it and she looked GORGEOUS on that show! I couldn't wait to get a glimpse of Dannii on a Saturday morning!

And definitely KNIGHTMARE!

This could be a great digital channel! I hope ITV don't just repeat all the naff shows they have on CITV at the moment!

They could also use old CITV idents - my favorite ones being those with Jean Downes and Scally the Dog era 1988-1990.

Potentially a classic channel - let's hope ITV don't ruin it!

Highly unlikely that they would repeat any Ghost Train -- this was a Tyne Tees-administered programme and a lot of their archive was lost in the early 90s.

Probably best not to get your hopes up as I can't really see a channel aimed at kids going back much further than the mid-90s in classic programming terms.

Can't believe Dangermouse hasn't been mentioned yet (Cosgrove Hall for Thames, so not necessarily available anyway, but one of the all time best programmes on CITV). Murphy's Mob was great.

Lost as in - we can't remember where we put the video tapes? Or lost as in there was a fire/flood and the tapes were damaged? Or lost as in someone else now owns the rights to the shows?

My money's on "all of the above". As in: Somebody else bought it, they had a fire, then they lost the tapes.

Maybe not

Lost as in "YTV wouldn't pay for the upkeep of the archive so thousands of tapes were destroyed".

Any websites at all about ITV's Ghost Train - I've never been able to find anything apart from it being mentionned on the usual Saturday morning shows websites...