About Granada Kids

The ITV Network’s timeslot for children's programmes was at first named Granada Kids! Before being known as Children's ITV. It was a live programme presented by the announcers of each of the ITV region. The programme is mostly known for the show Engie Bengy.

History

Granada Kids! was first aired on 3 January 1983. It consisted of pre-recorded programmes, usually featuring a new presenter every month and was then coordinated by the Central Independent Television. This went on for four years until 1987, when responding to Children's BBC which was started in 1985, that Children's ITV decided to start live in-vision presentations. This also marked the introduction of regular presenters for the programme which originally consisted of Debbie Shore and announcer Gary Terzza.

Dawn Airey, the new controller of CITV in February 1993 dropped the in-vision presentation to provide a large variety of animated characters in out-of-vision continuity links. Even though the Children's ITV name was the changed to CITV, the Children’s was only removed from the logo in 1996, when Digital On-screen Graphic (DOG) was started.

However, due to apparent budget cutes after the beginning of the 2000’s, the CITV's overall quality dropped significantly with fewer being produced and repeats. Things only went downhill in 2001 when Janie Grace, controller of CITV, publicly criticized Carlton and Granada, the two principal forces of the network’s ITV's children's service. It didn’t surprise anyone that Janie Grace was removed from the post when Nigel Pickard became the new director of programmes of ITV.

Famous shows

ITV's output for the channel was known for My Parents Are Aliens, Jungle Run, Art Attack, Horrid Henry, Bookaboo and The Cool Stuff Collective, and many other well-established programming from its long-running afternoon slot. On weekdays, the channel broadcasts mainly preschool programming in the day , and programmes, including Engie Bengie and The Big Bang were shown in the early evening. Visit http://www.granadakids.com for more details.