From Jim Metrock:
Channel One’s daily TV show is suppose to have no more than two minutes of commercial content. That promise is written into its contract. School boards relied on that promise, as well as others in the contract, terms of agreement, and Channel One’s news standards, when they agreed to turn over an hour a week of school time to Channel One.
Channel One sales representatives have secured favorable votes for instituting Channel One’s service based on their promise to have a strict limit to the amount of advertising on each show. The type and amount of advertising is ALWAYS a material component to any school board discussion about accepting or rejecting Channel One.
Any school board nowadays should know that Channel One is not telling the truth about their amount of advertising.
Those who have read our reporting on Channel One know that since 1997, Channel One has breached their contract and aired more than two minutes a day of commercial content.
Example: I offer up the August 25, 2006 show, for the latest and most egregious example of how Channel One News has misled the public.
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8/25/06 Ms. Wu sets up the Cingular promo.
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Eileen Wu is a Channel One "journalist/huckster" that knows how to plug a product during a newscast. In this one broadcast she uses her anchor position to sell Cingular and Gatorade products. This Cingular promo takes up about one minute of the show. Since there are already four 30-second spots in the two commercial breaks, that makes a total of three minutes of advertising. |
QOD SET-UP |
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Ms. Wu has run out of real news. What she is doing now will make Gatorade happy. After all, Gatorade is a major sponsor and it’s smart to keep your advertisers happy. This promo for Gatorade took up 2 minutes of time that Channel One News had promised would be devoted to current events and news. This whole segment was an advertisement for Gatorade. This 2 minute ad is on top of the regular 2 minutes of advertising on the show and on top of the minute-long Cingular Question of the Day. |
EILEEN: COMING UP NEXT, MEET TWO ATHLETES WHO LEAVE THE COMPETITION IN THE DUST INTRO GATORADE EILEEN: AND NOW TWO HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETES WHO HAVE RISEN TO THE TOP IN THEIR SPORTS. ALEXANDER MARQUARDT HAS THEIR STORIES. GATORADE ALEXANDER: SHE RUNS 100 METERS IN JUST OVER ELEVEN SECONDS. HE CAN JUMP SIX FEET HIGH AND FARTHER THAN 23 FEET. AND NOW BOTH OF THEM ARE IN A FIELD OF THEIR OWN AS GATORADE’S NATIONAL TRACK AND FIELD ATHLETES OF THE YEAR. A TITLE SOME CALL THE NATION’S MOST PRESTIGIOUS HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC AWARD. BIANCA KNIGHT IS MISSISSIPPI STATE CHAMPION IN THE HUNDRED, TWO HUNDRED AND FOUR HUNDRED METER EVENTS. ALL WHILE MANAGING TO KEEP A 3.1 GPA AT RIDGELAND HIGH SCHOOL. SELECTED FROM MORE THAN FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY EIGHT THOUSAND FEMALE TRACK AND FIELD ATHLETES NATIONWIDE, THE SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR IS THE FIRST EVER GATORADE NATIONAL AWARD WINNER IN ANY SPORT TO HAIL FROM MISSISSIPPI. BIANCA KNIGHT: I FEEL LIKE I DESERVE THE AWARD BECAUSE I’VE BEEN RUNNING HARD FOR A LONG TIME, BUT I WAS JUST SURPRISED BECAUSE I WAS LIKE, OUT OF ALL THE ATHLETES, HOW DID I GET IT? AND THEY TOLD ME IT WAS BECAUSE OF MY GRADES, SO I JUST FELT HONORED. ALEXANDER: FROM CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL IN SAN RAMON, CALIFORNIA, DAVID KLECH IS THE TOP RANKED HIGH SCHOOL PENTATHLETE IN THE NATION. THAT MEANS, HE COMPETES IN FIVE DIFFERENT EVENTS, RUNNING, HURDLES, HIGH HURDLES, HIGH JUMP AND LONG JUMP. STANDING SIX FEET, FOUR INCHES TALL, ITS NO WONDER THE RISING UCLA FRESHMAN BLOWS THE COMPETITION AWAY TIME AND TIME AGAIN. AND HIS STANDARD OF EXCELLENCE CARRIES OVER TO THE CLASSROOM, WHERE HE HAS A 4.0 GPA. DAVID KLECH: WHEN I LOOKED AT THE TROPHY, THE GATORADE TROPHY AND I SAW ALL THE NAMES I WAS IN COMPLETE SHOCK. IT WAS JUST, THESE ATHLETES THAT YOU READ ABOUT IN TRACK & FIELD NEWS AND YOU SEE ON ESPN ALL THE TIME, AND IT WAS JUST SOME OF THE BEST ATHLETES IN THE WORLD, AND TO BE ON THAT IS JUST SUCH A HUGE ACCOMPLISHMENT. ALEXANDER: ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CHANNEL ONE. WEB TAG
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Gatorade Mixes Ad With News – Video |
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Today’s show had a total of 5 minutes of commercial content. That is more than double the advertising time Channel One is allowed. School boards have been fleeced, but who would notice? Few school board members put a stopwatch on Channel One’s shows. Few have even seen the program.
Let’s say a school contracts with the Acme Hot Dog Company. Acme is suppose to deliver 10 pounds of hot dogs to the school’s cafeteria each day. The school has already paid Acme for the next year’s worth of hot dogs. Acme, however, is in a little financial trouble. Instead of delivering 10 pounds of hot dogs as agreed, they begin to ship 9. Nobody ever weighs the hot dogs. Also the packaging makes it difficult to determine the total weight. The school officials just trust Acme to deliver what they promised. By delivering less then the contract called for, Acme is stealing from the school. Since it is a governmental entity, they are stealing from taxpayers.
Channel One contractually promised school boards that they would deliver 10 minutes of news and current events each day. (The show is 12 minutes long and there is a limit of two minutes of ads.) There may have been school board members or superintendents that were not quite sure about bringing Channel One into their classrooms. Maybe the 10 minutes of news and other important content made the difference.
When sneaking ads into the news portion of the show, Channel One is delivering less news content, just like Acme is delivering fewer hot dogs. The fact that this has been going on for years doesn’t make it right. What it does is make for a really big reason to remove Channel One.
