CITV TO CLOSE AS ITV LAUNCHES DEDICATED SERVICE ON

ITV announces the launch of a new dedicated destination for kids on ITVX - ITVX Kids - with more content than ever before, across a range of titles appealing to both school age and pre-school age children. 

Launching in July 2023, and rolling out across the school summer holiday period, the new consolidated children’s offering will also see ITV taking its approach to 6-12s content, streaming-only, from early Autumn 2023. 

As a consequence of this new streaming approach, and responding to the changing ways children and their parents are increasingly accessing content, the CITV broadcast channel will close in early Autumn, once the new streaming destination for kids has been rolled out across platforms and devices, over the summer holidays.  

However, ITV 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.

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.

BARB viewing data demonstrates that while the average amount of broadcast TV minutes of kids TV channels watched by 4-15 year olds per week has declined by -62% since 2019, unmatched viewing has risen by +30% in the same period, demonstrating the streaming first trend in kids viewing. 

Craig Morris, Managing Editor of ITVX 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.”