Not a real person as such, Channing was the identity adopted by the advance guard of the Nestene Consciousness, who arrived on Earth six months before the main invasion force. Similar to the Autons and facsimiles of humans, Channing was really just a plastic body but animated by a larger than normal fragment of the Nestene Consciousness, and charged with providing the Nestene host with a physical body on Earth. Channing achieved this by taking control of a plastics factory and providing a nutrient tank which he grew the cephalopod body. Channing also masterminded the assault on humanity by the Auton killers and the substitution of major political and military figures with Auton facsimiles. He was stopped when the Doctor and Liz Shaw developed a machine that destroyed all of he facsimiles and Channing.