Well, they’re back on the
bus. Those lovely bozos from Channel One are back on the road trying
to keep the remaining schools they have from canceling their contracts.
Relatively poor states like Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia,
Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana have a disproportionate
number of public schools that still rent TV equipment from Channel
One. The South is extremely important for Channel One’s future
survival.
The current promotional tour started in Charleston, SC and then
went to Atlanta, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
Notice they skipped Alabama. Channel One News is a bitter topic
in our home state. The public still remembers the links to pornography
that Channel One provided kids in 1998. That led directly to one
of the largest school systems in the state (Shelby County) to remove
the program from all its middle and high schools (18,000 secondary
students). It also caused many other systems like the second largest
(Jefferson County) to grant principals the right to turn the program
off – which they did.
As Channel One goes across the South, they will find school after
school that has either turned their show off completely, or have
dramatically reduced the showing of the program. There is little
fear that Channel One will come and take their TVs back. The company
is in a very bad financial situation and they don’t want to tip
off advertisers that their audience numbers heading "south."
Obligation’s Jim Metrock said, "Since 1996, when I started
to report on Channel One, I have found no school district in our
state that honors the terms of the Channel One contract. Alabama
schools are trying their best to remove non-instructional time
from the school day. The newspaper reports on Channel One News
have been overwhelmingly negative. The two largest newspapers have
editorially urged the removal of Channel One from public schools.
Channel One is in trouble in other Southern states. In 2003, Nashville
metro schools removed Channel One News from all its classrooms.
It was a major blow to Channel One."
Last year Douglas County (GA) school district decided to keep
Channel One even though it had become extremely controversial in
the county, but the school district is very openly refusing to
honor the contract by showing the program much less than the minimum
90% of school days demanded by C1N. Many other southern public
school districts treat the TV sets as school property and not that
of Channel One. Recently, Obligation has been told that schools
in another southern state haven’t shown the TV show to students
for years and yet they still have Channel One TV equipment.
