From Jim Metrock:
The president and CEO of Channel One News has left the building. Jim Ritts is out.
In a move that shakes the company to its core, Channel One did not offer any explanation or reason for his departure.
Ritts was there at the beginning of the company in 1988. (Channel One was rolled out nationally in 1990.) He considered himself one of the founders.
This could mean that insiders see a very bleak future for the company. Ritts may have desired to jump ship before it goes under. Then again he might have been fired.
Ritts left Channel One in the mid-90’s to head the LPGA women’s golf tour. He did a fairly good job from what I have read but many of the golfers were ready to see him leave. He then made a terrible career move by joining Digital Entertainment Network. They showed Ritts the door and he was hired back at Channel One in 2000.
SInce coming back, Channel One News has gone steadily downhill. Under his leadership, advertisers have, not walked, but run away from the show. As advertisers got concerned about having their ads on something as controversial as Channel One News, Ritts and Company had to take about any advertiser they could find.
Ritts never had a problem with advertising Adam Sandler’s raunchy movies to schoolchildren. The money was good, but Ritts appears to have always underestimated the public backlash to the advertising he approved. In a middle of an obesity crisis, he gave a big thumb’s up to advertising Twinkies and Rollitos and Lay’s Stax and SnakStiks. He didn’t think people were watching, other than the kids. He was wrong and he is gone.
Ritts was an advertising man. He wasn’t an educator. He wasn’t a journalist. He was an “ad man.” That’s what Channel One is about. It’s an advertising gimmick and it’s an advertising gimmick that has pretty much run its course.
Channel One is conducting a search for a new president. Good luck, guys.
What executive in his or her right mind would become the president of this company? They are going to have to pay the new exec BIG BUCKS.
Let’s hope the next CEO is the last one for Channel One.
