CITV Old Skool Weekend

The CITV Old Skool Weekend was a special weekend of programming that was broadcast to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the start of the British television channel CITV (previously known as Children's ITV). It was held on the weekend of 5 and 6 January 2013, and saw the usual channel's output replaced by programmes from the CITV archives, with content from the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s shown across the schedule.
The event was announced in December 2012 and was preceded by a documentary looking back at 30 years of the programming block on ITV and the CITV channel. The weekend proved very successful for the CITV channel, with record-breaking ratings and a positive response on the social networking sites Twitter and Facebook. It also led to calls for both ITV and BBC to create permanent channels broadcasting archived children's shows, as ITV3 does for content for older viewers.
Background
Although children's programming had been shown on ITV since its inception in 1955, the Children's ITV brand was introduced in January 1983, with separate, networked continuity aimed at a child audience rather than the programmes being introduced by regional announcers (and shown regionally on Thursdays and sometimes on Saturday mornings). Children's programming continued to be shown regularly on the channel until 2006, at which point a dedicated channel, the CITV channel, was launched, which broadcasts from 6.00am to 7.00pm. ITV closed its in-house children's programming department in 2006, and cut back the hours of children's broadcasting on ITV to 8 hours a week. Children's programmes were temporarily removed from the ITV schedule in January 2007, and this became permanent later in the year.
In 2003, CITV celebrated their 20th anniversary with an event called the "CITV Birthday Bash", which saw former and current presenters come together, along with invited children, to celebrate the channel's history. In December 2012, CITV announced that they would be holding another event to mark the 30th anniversary of CITV, and details emerged of a one-off documentary, as well as a weekend of programming from the archives, to be broadcast in January 2013.
Jamila Metran, CITV's head of programming, said in annnouncing the weekend: "We are very proud of CITV's heritage and look forward to bringing back all the old favourites for this one-off, not-to-be-missed event and show the kids what their parents watched when they were young."
Schedule
30 Years of CITV documentary
A 60 minute documentary titled 30 Years of CITV, celebrating 30 years of children's programming on ITV, was broadcast at 6.30pm on 29 December 2012 on ITV, STV & UTV. Narrated by Vernon Kay, it featured interviews with former presenters and cast members of CITV shows, including Stephen Mulhern, Ant and Dec, Jane Danson, Neil Buchanan, Matthew Kelly and Holly Willoughby. The show also included clips of children's programmes from across the channel's history.
Old Skool Weekend
On the weekend of 5th and 6th January 2013, the usual content on the CITV channel was replaced by a selection of programmes from the archives. This included shows from the launch of the channel in the 1980s, through the 1990s and into the 2000s.
The weekend began with an episode of the sci-fi comedy Mike and Angelo from the first series in 1989, and Saturday also featured the popular programmes Art Attack (1992), Super Gran (1985), Press Gang (1990), Knightmare (1993) and Fun House (1994). On Sunday, the schedule included Dangermouse (1986), How 2 (1995), Woof (1993), Rosie and Jim (1990) and My Parents are Aliens (2005).
Ratings
In addition to the positive reaction to the event, the Old Skool Weekend also saw the CITV channel draw its best ever ratings since its launch in 2006. The highest rated programme of the weekend was Dangermouse, which peaked at 523,000 viewers (a 5.7% share) in its 11.30 timeslot on Saturday. This was followed by Rosie and Jim (455,000 or 5.1%). According to the figures, an episode of Horrid Henry is the third highest rated programme in the channel's history.
The documentary received viewership of 1.96 million and a 9% share, up against a one-off 2012 Olympians special of Superstars on BBC One and a documentary on BBC Two about The Sound of Music, as well as the start of the film The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King on Channel 4. It had another 129,000 viewers in a repeat an hour later on ITV+1, STV+1 & UTV+1.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu