ITV's children's channel CITV ends commissioning freeze (original) (raw)

ITV's children's channel CITV has ended its commissioning freeze, ordering a second series of Horrid Henry and new animation show My Goldfish is Evil.

The channel has commissioned 26 episodes of My Goldfish is Evil, produced by Sardine Productions, which chronicles the adventures of a young boy named Beanie and his pet, Mr Bubbles - a talking goldfish who wants to conquer the world.

A second series of the channel's top-rated show, Horrid Henry, has also been ordered.

In addition, CITV has commissioned another run of "make and do" show Finger Tips.

The upbeat programme, produced by Foundation TV, combines traditional methods of making things out of packaging and recycled materials with computers and digital technology.

The CITV and ITV3 controller, Emma Tennant, said: "I am thrilled to be commissioning new episodes of these fantastic series for CITV.

"Horrid Henry is truly a CITV hero and it's fantastic to be working with Novel [Entertainment] to develop the brand further. Finger Tips is a great factual format which has proved very popular with our viewers."

ITV was criticised after it imposed a freeze on ordering new children's programmes almost two years ago.

Since then it has played out the new programmes it had on its shelves and filled the rest of the airtime with repeats.

CITV's output has been scrutinised more since ITV1 decided to replace traditional children's weekday teatime programmes with repeats of popular dramas such as Inspector Morse and Midsomer Murders at the start of last year.

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