Save Kids’ TV

Children’s television was very important to me, both during my years as a viewer and years writing and performing the children’s show Do Not Adjust Your Set. I took it for granted, and still do, that there are programmes which can be tailored for children and which very often contain more substance, information and entertainment than those for an adult audience.  

Children are eager to learn, but the context of their lives is very different from that of adults. Producing sympathetic, creative, entertaining and informative programmes for them is a challenge which our broadcasters have risen to with great success.  

I urge them not to throw away this important opportunity to engage with children. To lose children’s TV would be to lose some of our most inventive programmes and it would be a betrayal of our duty to keep television relevant to children’s needs.  

I support the campaign to Save Kids’ TV in the UK because parents need it, children need it and to abandon it would be to ditch a great tradition of excellence in producing some of the best and most inventive television in the world.

Michael Palin was born in Sheffield, went to Shrewsbury School and then to Oxford where he read history, performed in many comedy shows, and started working with fellow writer and performer Terry Jones.  After Oxford, Michael and Terry went on to write for various BBC comedy shows. In 1967, they teamed up with Eric Idle to write and perform the children’s comedy series, Do Not Adjust Your Set.