ITV To Mark 30 Years Of Children's Programmes

The 30th anniversary of the Children's ITV brand is to be marked with a special documentary and an "Old Skool Weekend" of iconic programmes from the '80s and '90s.

Children's ITV launched on 3rd January 1983, and in the early days guest presenters - including Roland Rat, Timmy Mallet, and Basil Brush - pre-recorded the intros to children's programming every month. In 1987, Children's ITV went live, with output presented by Gary Terzza and Debbie Shore. The CITV channel arrived on 11th March 2006 and, with its mix of programming aimed primarily at four-to-nine-year-olds, now broadcasts approximately a third of original content.

A one-hour documentary entitled 30 Years Of CITV will be shown on ITV1 on Saturday 29th December at 6.30pm, while between 9.25am and 6pm on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th January, CITV will be showing a selection of its iconic shows, including the first and last episodes of Press Gang - Steven Moffat's first TV work - and episodes from Children's Ward, which was produced by Russell T Davies, who also wrote for it, as well as an episode of Button Moon, whose theme music was co-composed by Peter Davison.

The "Old Skool Weekend" schedule is as follows: