This press release shows how Channel One News coverts taxpayer-funded school time into advertising time. Tyler Bryant’s recording company signs a contract with Channel One News; Tyler Bryant’s music is heard for one week in 8,000 schools. Hear It Now is a feature Channel One News developed to get more than the allowed 2 minutes of advertising into their 12 minute show.
This is how Hear It Now works: As the daily show begins, students hear a snippet of a song, the anchor then starts talking. About 4 minutes into the show the first commercial break occurs, right before the first “official” commercial airs, students hear the same song again and are shown the name of the song and the name of the band along with a picture of the CD that song came from. They are also told to go to Channelone.com for more information and songs from the featured artist. Coming out the first commercial break students will hear the song for the third time. A few minutes later the 2nd and last commercial break occurs and again the music is heard going in and out of the break. At the end of the show, guess what? You guessed it, the song is played again. Incredibly, none of this time is considered advertising time by Channel One.
This press release is from a year ago, but this insane practice of using school time to promote musical artists goes on virtually every day. Today, September 9, 2010, Channel One News is pitching students a band called Boyce Avenue.
