Channel One News sells advertising
on its in-school TV show and on its web site. Part of the duties of
Channel One’s on-air personalities
is to drive children to the web site so revenues can be further enhanced.
The web site was once commercial-free (all educational sites should be),
but the present management is aggressively adding commercial content.
A recently added section to Channelone.com is called "Shop"
Check the latest updates to Channel One’s Shopping Experience for
Children at http://www.channelone.com/shop/
This is a major departure for Channel One News. Now, Channel One is
openly selling products on their site. They have picked several music
CDs to advertise on their site and offer a link to Amazon.com for the
purchases to be made. (Channel One News gets a portion of the money
Amazon collects from the children.) Of course, Channel One executives
can say they are merely providing links to other sites that sell the
products, but if you look at what Channel One is doing they are clearly
trading on the trust they have developed with some children who are
fans of the classroom TV show.
Channelone.com is now a full-fledged commercial site and the ramifications
may be serious. During the in-school TV show, the on-air personalities
like Derrick Shore and Joshua Toole urge the young audience to go to
the Channel One web site for more information about a story or to enter
a contest or to give their opinion about something. Each reference
to "Channelone.com" should be considered "commercial
time" on the TV show. This further violates their contract limit
on total commercial time.
