TV: Puffin's Pla(i)ce

If you have a Sky Digital receiver you will be able to receive ITV1 channels from different regions to your own. I came across the EPG codes for Channel Television so I thought I might give them a whirl and see what it came up with. I caught their regional news bulletin Channel Report and an amateurishly-produced children's TV show called Puffin's Pla(i)ce. Channel Television is by far the smallest station on the ITV1 network: it serves the populations of the islands with a combined total population of only 150,000. The station runs on a shoestring budget and has frequently run into serious financial trouble in the past - indeed, it has been threatened with closure several times. It has no continuity announcements and has produced almost no programmes of any note whatsoever for the ITV network in its entire history! It produces Channel Report and Puffin's Pla(i)ce and that's pretty much it. Both make for fascinating viewing though. It's a wonderful look to see how such a tiny station can pull itself together and produce a locally-based programme for its viewers, even if it's evidently ineptly produced.

The presenter of Puffin's Pla(i)ce, Kevin Pamplin, repeatedly looks away and makes glaring mistakes on-air. Kevin drones on about a competition that Puffin's Pla(i)ce is running and has to admit that the people at Channel have got the notice wrong for when the competition closes! The single high-profile interviewee is Kevin's boss, who haphazardly witters on about a run he took part in while trying to hand out some sort of moral message to his young viewers while Kevin nods on. He then gets out the TV guide and again makes a further cock-up by beginning to read out yesterday's television listings and apologises to his boss. He finds the correct day's TV listings and incomprehensibly mutters directly from the TV guide before finally signing off.

Puffin's Pla(i)ce ends with the 'Hearts' Channel Television logo (long since dropped by the rest of the network) and we are taken into generic ITV1 territory.