A new advertiser on Channel One is the Women’s Sports Foundation. This nonprofit has been running their spots on C1 for the last two months.
On yesterday’s and today’s show, Donna Lopiano,a spokesperson for the Foundation was given significant interview time for a story about a 1972 law concerning sports programs for women and girls. Also, the Foundation’s founder, Billy Jean King, was featured on yesterday’s program.
Was this story prepared with the idea of showcasing the Women’s Sports Foundation? Was there a quid pro quo for the Foundation signing up to advertise on C1? Did Channel One say, give us your money and we’ll run your ads and maybe we’ll feature you guys in a story about women’s sports?
Obligation’s Jim Metrock said, “There may be a good explanation for this. It certainly doesn’t look good. I think anything is possible with the group running Channel One now. Recently, Channel One ran an AOL commercial that featured the famous AOL trademark ‘You’ve got mail’ . Channel One went straight out of that commercial to an anchor in front of a large graphic that read ‘You’ve Got Mail.’ Coincidence?”
Last year, Channel One ran a series of commercials for Cobaltcard. This was a “buying card” that American Express wanted children to use so they would graduate to a real credit card later. A big selling point to the card was it made buying items on the web much easier. During this Cobaltcard blitzkrieg, Channel One did a story on Internet buying habits of teenagers. The story featured a girl who says how much she loved shopping on the web but the biggest problem was how to pay for the things she found.
Channel One uses its reporters and producers to reward people other than advertisers. In 1999, the Traditional Values Coalition, a conservative group, along with other conservative groups, signed a stinging letter opposing Channel One News. Then the TVC completely flipped around and put out a letter saying they thought Channel One was fine. Afterwards, the TVC president was chosen to be interviewed as an expert for a Channel One story.
U. S. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas was asked by Channel One’s lobbyist firm to place into the Senate record a statement praising Channel One. This he did. Since that time, Brownback has had considerable “face time” on Channel One. That couldn’t hurt Brownback because Kansas has a lot of schools still showing Channel One and those students are future Kansas voters.
