After spending days promoting the extreme sports of the Winter X Games,
Channel One announced this morning that the Olympics will be a major part
of their telecast for the next two weeks. Channel One anchor Derrick Shore
said that Channel One will be partnering with NBC to bring Olympic coverage
into classrooms.
NBC’s sports announcer Bob Costas will be on Channel One Friday to "preview
the games."
Forget math, social studies and English, Bob Costa will be pushing NBC’s
Olympic coverage during classroom time to Channel One’s captive audience.
This advertising will be considered "hard news" by C1 and will
not count toward the two-minute commercial limit.
Obligation’s president Jim Metrock said, "What a waste of precious
school time. This is advertising for NBC. It is the same as guest hosts
on Channel One pushing their upcoming tour or latest movie. Even the staunchest
defender of Channel One’s controversial show must be having a hard time
justifying the new and sillier Channel One News. That is one reason the
vast majority of secondary schools in our country have rejected this marketing
ploy dressed up like a news show."
"NBC will be telling children about what is coming up on that night’s
coverage hoping they and their parents will watch. This violates Channel
One’s promise to limit commercial messages to no more than two minutes.
Beside the commercial angle, how is this content going to help students
pass their high school graduation exams or score well on standard achievement
tests?"
66 Years Lost … in one day
On Friday, February 5, Channel One spent 4 minutes and 10 seconds on a
story about ice hockey players. Hockey!
4 minutes X 8 million (the number of students under contract to Channel
One) = over 500,000 lost hours of school time
That is equivalent to more than 66 years of lost school time across this
country. Imagine what it would be if we multiple by 13 minutes (the typical
length of the C1N TV show).
