In 1980, ITV launched a children's watershed called "Watch It!", which would soon be rebranded as "Children's ITV" in 1983 and rebranded again as "CITV" in 1996. 10 years later in 2006, the CITV Channel launched on Freeview, Sky, NTL and Telewest. The watershed on ITV would change hours during all those 42.6 years of CITV. The CITV watershed and channel would later close on 27 August and 1 September 2023 respectively due to possibly low viewership, streaming services and competition from other channels like CBBC and Pop. A day later, CITV returned on ITV2, but this time the watershed aired from 5am-9am instead of 6am-8:25am. This was later pushed back to airing from 6am-7:45am due to ITVBe programming returning to ITV2 after its closure in June 2025. However, all things must come to an end for CITV. This month from 10th April, the watershed will cease broadcasting as ITV plc will replace it with more ITV2 and ITVBe programming on ITV2, ending 42.6 years of childrens' programming on ITV. CBBC has since been acquiring many shows from CITV like Scooby-Doo and Teen Titans Go. R.I.P. CITV (1980-2026)
From Horrid Henry and Pocoyo, to Dave Spud and Scooby-Doo, CITV will truly be missed. C2A
