E4's successful youth drama Skins is to end after next year's seventh series, Channel 4 has confirmed.

The final series to be broadcast in early 2013, with Channel 4 promising "a celebration of this truly iconic series".

Skins, created by father-and-son writers Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain and made by independent producer Company, was groundbreaking in its use of a team of young writers and a cast of actors often getting their first major TV break. The cast was also regularly changed from series to series.

The E4 drama was also innovative in its use of social media to market the show.

Skins debuted on E4 in January 2007 with 1.4 million viewers – at the time the digital channel's biggest ever audience for a UK-originated show other than Big Brother.

"Skins is a brilliant show which has defined a generation and will go down as a truly iconic, game-changing piece of television but after seven series it is time for E4 to make way for the next generation of the bold, the new and the innovative," a Channel 4 spokeswoman said.

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