Ant and Dec emotional as CITV shuts down for good after 40 years

The closure of CITV means a lot to Britain's most popular broadcasting duo.

If you were born in the 90s, there was nothing better than catching Art Attack or the chilling Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids when you got back from school.

Worst Witch, My Parents Are Aliens, Matt's Million, How 2, Woof, Rosie & Jim, the list of classics go on.

And Ant and Dec's first-ever TV presenting job was on the ITV children's channel, which was launched back in 2006.

But CITV has now been replaced with a new 'dedicated destination for kids' on its streaming service ITVX Kids.

On the new plans, managing editor of ITVX, Craig Morris said: “We’re really excited to launch this dedicated destination for kids on ITVX, which will be home to a wealth of content including new series, recognisable brands and existing favourites for a range of ages, all in one child-safe area, with editorial curation to guide viewing.

“The wealth of content will be available to stream for free, with the option for parents to choose ad free viewing, through a subscription to ITVX Premium.”

The broadcaster also said that accessibility for young viewers is 'a big priority'.

However, it's important to remember that without CITV, there would be no Ant and Dec, Holly Willoughby, Fearne Cotton or Stephen Mulhearn, who all launched their careers on the kids' channel.

Taking to social media on Saturday (2 September), the day after the channel closed forever, the Geordie duo shared a throwback pic of their time on the show.

They simply captioned the story: "End of an era."

Instagram/@antanddec/ITV

ITV also said in a press release earlier this year: "ITVX Kids is part of ITV’s continuing drive to supercharge its presence in streaming, delivering content to audiences however they want to watch it."

ITVX Kids is now home to new launches and recognisable children’s programmes, including the animated series of Mr Bean, TeleTubbies Let’s Go!, Sooty and Bob The Builder.

New programmes are expected to be added to the service monthly, with content spanning comedy, game shows, live action, animation and sport and 'sourced from a broad spectrum of distributors, from small independents as well as regional UK suppliers'.

New episodes of The Rubbish World of Dave Spud are commissioned for broadcast in 2024, if you're into that.

ITV said the 'ambition' is for all ITVX Kids content to be subtitled, with 20 percent of the content offering audio description.

The new offering will also include British Sign Language original programming such as Mission Employable and Dare Master.

ITV said they 'will maintain the LittleBe pre-school segment on ITVBe and will offer some children’s content in the early mornings on ITV2 from September with strong cross promotion to ITVX'.

Topics: TV and Film, Ant and Dec, Celebrity, ITV

Anish Vij

Anish is a GG2 Young Journalist of the Year 2024 finalist. He has a Master's degree in Multimedia Journalism and a Bachelor's degree in International Business Management. Apart from that, his life revolves around the ‘Four F’s’ - family, friends, football and food. Email: [email protected]

@Anish_Vij