Taken from Wiki:
Children's ITV began in January 1983 and originally featured pre-recorded in-vision continuity links fronted by various presenters and characters from Children's ITV programmes. The strand was broadcast live from Central Independent Television for the first time in 1987 and started to utilise regular staff presenters. The rebranded CITV reverted to out-of-vision continuity in February 1993, voiced by Steven Ryde, who later became a producer when the strand reverted back to in-vision presentation in May 1998 and hired new presenters. In-vision continuity was phased out again in September 2004, signalling the end of CITV presentation from Birmingham after 17 years. At the start of 2007, CITV was no longer seen on weekday afternoons on ITV1. Since January 2009 CITV is no longer seen at all on ITV1. Currently, CITV presentation is produced by Granada Television in Manchester, with pre-recorded continuity links voiced by James Cook, Paul Merchant & Dermot O'Leary.
Post 2000 however, the overall quality of CITV's output began to drop considerably after peaking in the early 1990s, apparent budget cuts meant fewer shows were made, repeats were much more frequent, and many flagship shows were axed. It did not help that in 2001 CITV's controller Janie Grace publicly criticised Carlton and Granada, then ITV's controlling forces, for underinvestment in ITV's children's service. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Grace was removed from her post just as Nigel Pickard was named as ITV's new Director of Programmes. This decline has seemingly continued, thanks to perceived rising costs of original production (and the effects on advertising revenues following the ban by OFCOM on 'junk food' advertising within children's schedules), and increasing competition from CBBC and countless digital children's channels for new programmes (especially imported cartoons, typically from America).
It's a very sad state of affairs.