until the 90s CITV was aimed well into the teenage age group and even young adults to some extent (it sort of merged with any pre-watershed “yoof” TV) so was able to get away with a fair bit. ironically because ITV was told to go for “market forces”, they often left alone controversial shows provided the advertisers (mostly toys and junk food) kept booking slots.
CITV was run from Central until the 2000s when regions (other than news) got abolished, hence why this company made a fair few of the more daring kids’ shows.
in the late 90s all kids TV was redone to age group 0-12 and they had to censor it more to stop middle class parents blocking their kids viewing (this was just before broadband and real time flash video became available). Then ofcom banned junk food ads at kiddies viewing time and CITV was virtually closed down (what remains of it TX’s repeats of shows from 10 years ago and imported foreign stuff.) Foreign countries too had done this for years but put a legal requirement on all channels that they must make shows for all age groups – we do not have this.
