CITV 1989-2005

For ITV's first corporate logo change, they also brought in a generic CITV logo. The video clip here is very brief, and was shown as part of the Birthday Bash Programme in 2003.

A CITV promo for Steven Moffat drama series Press Gang in 1991. As both the show and the strand were a Central production so they had quite a vested interest in it, the promo here was actually being shown during Central's primetime hours.

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After the withdrawl of the ITV generic look, this new look was introduced to CITV completely devoid of connections to the main corporate ITV logo once more. The logo itself remained in use throughout the 90s in different, with modifications to the surrounding presentation instead. Although initially present, the word 'Childrens' was dropped later.

An advert for some of the programmes on CITV in 1992. How many of them can you remember...

After the arrival of Dawn Airey as the new children's controller, the decision was made to take CITV out-of-vision in February 1993. The same logo was kept, but instead of links being presented invision, a set of idents and stings were introduced combining the logo with a mixture of live action and simple computer graphics. Steve Ryde provided out of vision announcing over... well... everything for the next 5 years. The station opening ident from 1994, which visually remains the same, just with an updated audio track.

The CITV logo... with a giant caterpillar. The costs of graphics here clearly immense!

Another advert for CITV, again with loads of old CITV programmes. The real thing I hate about this is the voice-over. Done by a guy called Steven Ryde (who doesn't take criticism well it would seem), he provided just about all of the out-of-vision voices on CITV from 1993 to 1998. Whilst he is more than capable of announcing, Central really should have hired more than one v/o, as having only one person to do every link as well as try to do multiple different voices on a single promo became a bit repetitive. Why they couldn't just borrow some of the announcers from elsewhere in what was then still a fully living station is a mystery!

A simpler pre-school friendly rendition of the CITV intro ident from 1995, still using essentially the same design and music as the 1994 example, but with bolder colours and a 'lovely' font choice.

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A user-submitted ident for CITV from 1995, proving this is not a new concept for the children's block. Here a small child jumps up and down excitedly in front of the TV, in a contribution from Neil Fitzgibbon. Also featuring someone other than Steve providing V/O too!

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A simple ident/sting for CITV, featuring the channel logo rendered as if underwater.

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An animated character peers into lots of different doors, before finally finding the CITV logo hidden behind one of them.

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A promotion for the animated series The Legends of Treasure Island, which aired on CITV from 1993-1995. A UK production for Central, featuring the voice talents of, among others, Dawn French, Hugh Laurie and Chris Barrie.

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Although primarily an out-of-vision presenter, Ryde would occasionally appear in vision as various characters for filmed trailers on CITV. Here he's been sent all the way down to Maidstone to film a very short trailer on the set of Finders Keepers.

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A short 1995 promo for cartoons on CITV, reminding viewers 'Everyday's a Cartoon Day' on the strand.

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With a slightly curtailed week due to the Rugby World Cup, CITV take an early look ahead next week despite it only being Thursday. With a mix of reusable CITV-branded footage, between clips from the shows.

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Despite the number of trailers and idents available during CITV, there was still a need to fill up time during the out-of-vision segments. So small pieces of filler material such as this would often be used. Here it's a quick Q&A with an animated scientist.

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In late 1996/early 1997, the presentation set was refreshed with a new set of sequences referred to as 'CITV town'. A collection of paper-maché models filmed in a stop-frame animation style, initially using a contemporary town, although later switching to a medieval themed one. This would be the final 'out of vision' presentation to feature on the channel for a while.

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In early 1998, the biggest changes in well over 5 years came to CITV. ITV finally invested a huge budget (or at least for a while...), in providing a proper studio, new presenters, and fancy graphics. Originally such studio space was a tiny affair at Central TV, but Central managed to up the size of it in latter years by moving it into part of their news studio. The shape of the CITV lettering also changed at this point. Various campaigns and trails were used over the years of that look. Some of them doubling up as idents as was the case with this one with the slogan 'Be Part Of It' in 2001. A series of shorts trying to encourage people to get involved.

Another of the 'Be Part of it' ads.

And a third example of the 'Be Part of it' campaign. My, how these kids are going to regret this in later life!

Another Be Part of It short from CITV in 2001, featuring children playing card games again.

Blowing up a very large CITV bubble to Be Part of It. It won't be much longer before that children's television bubble bursts, so enjoy it whilst you can!

"Sorry mate, yer name's not on the list!" Another Be Part of It short from 2001.

An example of the 2001 promo style for CITV. Here showing a mix of the 16:9 production of most shows by 2001 alongside the 4:3 standard the whole of the CITV strand actually used. With graphics overlaying the letterbox bars.

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Tellytots was a strand for young children's programming, though its a shame the voiceover cast is somewhat limited. Just when we thought we had heard the last of Mr Ryde with the reintroduction of live action and more than a single presenter, he crops up to provide the voices of all the characters in the pre-school slot.

Over the summer of 2001, at the peak of the last in vision days from Central, the CITV team went out on the road to tour theme parks all over the UK as part of The White Knuckle Tour. Once a week a different venue featured, with a chance for a voted presenter to have to take the 'Ride of Terror' (Namely one of the parks scariest rides). Clips from a few of these now follows. First up is Stephen at Drayton Manor.

Danielle at Alton Towers.

The special ident for use during the White Knuckle Tour.

The Christmas 2001 presentation package style for CITV included a slightly modified 'Be Part of It' slogan in the form of 'Christmas is Part of CITV'. Graphically, a collage style of all the presenters was used mixed in with animation. In this version, David pops out of a present as an elf.

In this second variant of the Christmas ident, Stephen is fishing as an eskimo overseen by a large amount of penguins. No I have not been drinking!

An example of the promo style in use during Christmas 2001 for CITV.

The Christmas 2001 Coming Up Next presentation style for CITV.

One of many short stings/idents in use during the final CITV look from Birmingham. Here the CITV logo is made up from a fuzzy television picture

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The CITV logo explodes comic-book-style in another ident/sting from the final CITV look from Birmingham.

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CITV have their own take on the I'm a Celebrity Koala puppets that the main ITV channel had been using to promote the series. Here being used to promote the Saturday show of the time Ministry of Mayhem.

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The remaining CITV team present another link from right near the end of In-vision Continuity from Birmingham. By this time the cutbacks to the budget had become very obvious with a massively cutdown set compared to what had been seen in previous years. After the end of July, the studio was dropped completely with links done 'on-tour' throughout August, before the out-of-vision service began from Manchester at the end of that month.

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An example of the last ECP style from the Birmingham operation of CITV in 2004. Essentially just a regular promo, but squashed into 2/3 of the screenspace instead.

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An early 2004 closeout from CITV, using a watery version of their logo.

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A special ident shown as a break between 'regular' ITV1 and CITV, showing one logo flipping to reveal the other at the start of the programming block, shown here from the return to out-of-vision in September 2004. Despite repeated budget cutbacks by ITV, Central had managed to maintain an almost complete in-vision service right up until the latter part of 2004 from their Birmingham base. Sadly the service finally succumbed to the closing of all non-news production bases outside of Yorkshire, Granada and London under ITV plc. Provision of the Children's service instead moved to Granada in Manchester at the end of August 2004, with it being taken back out of vision, and being filled with wall-to-wall idents and promotions instead. Originally hopes were pinned by most of us on this only being a cheap and not-quite-so-cheerful stopgap measure until a new joint service between ITV and Nickleodeon launched, however that deal fell through with ITV going it alone to launch the CITV channel, and continuing the low-cost service to this day.

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The CITV break bumper from 2004, replacing the regular ITV1 bumper during the broadcast hours of the children's strand. The three different coloured elements of the CITV logo flash up separately, creating a logo which goes past in the blink of an eye, but which you can still very clearly make out the logo from.

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Just starting the second week of the return to Out Of Vision presentation and the opening to the pre-school block on CITV. Mixing shots of show characters with animated scenes and a chirpy little song.

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One of many CITV stings/bumpers used much more frequently after the dropping of invision presentation in 2004. Here the CITV logo is somewhat abstractly made up from paint splodges, with out-of-vision continuity promoting a new series of Art Attack.

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A short CITV ident/sting in which the logo is made up (almost) from the sides of a Rubix Cube.

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Fizzling and crackling lights flash over a CITV logo for this ident. Never quite getting to the correct colours for the logo. Complete with continuity crashing into the next show, something which seemed much more common on the children's strand presumably to keep everything looking fast-paced.

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A simple programme-themed ident for CITV based around the animated show 'Engie Benji'.

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Ending the day on CITV in 2004 with a look ahead to tomorrow's shows, before closing on a flipcard version of the logo which looks very similar to that used at the opening.

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A promotion for the CITV website in 2004 which by this point was still operating largely independent of the rest of the ITV site, other than for the change to move it onto the itv.com domain.

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In this ident, a robot is seen forming the CITV logo in a not-at-all-Transformers-inspired manner.

Alien spaceships from the repeated-into-the-ground CITV program 'My Parents Are Aliens' form the CITV logo this time.

A programme promotion from 2005.

Running down a list of the days programmes.

Ah one of the many wonders of not having an invision service is the amount of extra time it leaves you to run self promotion. So here CITV... advertise themselves!

A second (and much more developed) self-promotional trail for CITV.