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For years Obligation has documented numerous ways schools violate the viewing terms of Channel One’s contract. [ex. MS, AL and TX, GA and TX, FL, NE, WY, IA and the notorious Pizitz Letters – Channel One admits their viewing requirements can be disregarded.]
This year I tried to bring this information to the Army’s attention. The Army is a major advertiser on the program. That’s right, American taxpayers are propping up the existence of this controversial youth marketing company.
I told the Army that there is a good chance Channel One’s audience numbers are inflated. The man responsible for spending Army ad money (tax money) on Channel One is John Myers at Fort Knox, KY. He didn’t want to meet with me. He didn’t want anyone telling him that he may have been wasting tax money for… years.
In response to my concerns, the Army sent U.S. Senator Richard Shelby this “white paper” defending their ad spending. This was forwarded on to me. Below I have copied the “white paper” word-for-word. Everything in black is from the Army. My comments are in red.
This document only helps to confirm my fears that the people responsible for the Army’s Channel One ad spending are not taking this matter seriously and have not done adequate due diligence work.
I have not edited the document. It is here in full. There is no indication as to the author of this document. I presume this is a work product of the Army (Mr. Myers) with the heavy assistance of a very concerned Channel One sales staff.
The US Army “White Paper” defending the size of Channel One’s audience begins now:
Channel One Background a. Penetration: Channel One is broadcast into 8,000 middle and high schools and viewed in more than 250,000 classrooms, reaching nearly 25 percent of U.S. teens. The U.S. Army only advertises in high schools.
[Minor point: In keeping with the other figures in the sentence, they should have said “nearly 8,000” – the correct number is 7,850. Why not use “nearly 8,000” or state the actual numbers if they feel background information is important?]
b. School Partnerships: Channel One is offered at no charge to schools and they are a service that schools contract, [Minor point: Grammar mistakes can happen to anybody. I make such mistakes all the time, but this is the Army writing to a U.S. Senator (or to a private citizen through a U.S. Senator) and it indicates this was slapped together and maybe not even proofread.] agreeing specifically that Channel One be used as a teaching tool. [There is nothing in Channel One’s contract that supports that statement. http://help. c. News Content: Channel One provides 12 minutes of news content per day, 5 days a week throughout the school year. The news is provided by CBS News. [This is not only untrue it’s ridiculously untrue. The program is 12 minutes long. 2 minutes of the show is contractually devoted to commercials, leaving 10 minutes not 12 minutes for news and other non-commercial content. If you take the feature stories out, the time spent on real news is about 4-6 minutes per show. So what this indicates is Mr. Myers isn’t concerned with the accuracy of this “white paper.” He wanted to get something quickly out the door so people would stop bugging him about his Channel One spending. I understand that his department is understaffed and that members of his staff are leaving because this section at Ft. Knox will be disbanded or moved next year, but a mistake like this casts doubt on the rest of the document.] d. Other advertisers: Macy’s, Nickelodeon, Johnson & Johnson, The Milk Board, Dell, Proctor & Gamble, Kmart, Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros, Gatorade, Meade, Puma, Xbox , Sega, Nintendo, 20 different universities as well as other military branches of govt including Navy, Air Force, Marines [I have no doubt these entities have been advertisers on the show but I think Mr. Myers included these names to show the Army is in good company. If so, he is being misleading. Meade? Never have seen that name in an ad and I have never seen Meade telescopes advertised. The last Sega ad I saw was for Sonic the Hedgehog game years ago. I believe “20 universities” is unsupportable. SUNY (State U of NY) briefly advertised on the show over 6 years ago. I believe I was somewhat helpful in convincing SUNY to remove their ads. Listing the Navy and Air Force is particularly misleading since Mr. Myers has to know those services have been off Channel One for a couple of years. Of course Mr. Myers didn’t state these were current advertisers, he just implied it. The vagueness is clever but unbecoming of someone in his position.] e. Advertising Standards: Channel One does not allow advertisers representing sugared foods, snacks, fast food, violent video games.
[This sentence is partial truthful. Mr. Myers wants the reader to feel good about this advertising vehicle he is spending tax money on. I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. He may be relatively new in his job and not know the basic history of Channel One News. For most of their existence the company has advertised candy, snack foods,and sugary soft drinks. Channel One advertised M&Ms, Snickers, Lay’s Potato Chips, McDonalds, Burger King, Skittles,Pepsi, and Hostess Twinkies to name a few. Channel One didn’t ban these product ads, the companies on their own left Channel One News. In the previous paragraph the Army wants to confuse the reader by going back in time to list advertisers, but in this paragraph he wants Channel One to look good by forgetting about the past and only mentioning the current situation. Channel One News indeed advertises violent video games. In October and November 2011 they advertised The Main Event game rated “T” for violence. This was age-inappropriate for their middle school audience.] While they accept movie advertising, they screen movies for no violence and bad language
[This is blatantly untrue. There is no screening. I had a Channel One VP tell me this to my face while I sat in his office around 2000. I give Mr. Myers and the Army the benefit of the doubt here because they must be unfamiliar with Channel One’s content and this line had to have come from C1N’s PR people. The company has advertised violent movies and movies with profanity every year since 1996. Just two recent examples: I Am Number Four (MPAA Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and for language http://www.
f. Awards: Channel One has won over 250 awards for journalism including two Peabody Awards (excellence in broadcasting).
[True, but none of this has anything to do with my concerns over audience numbers.] Mr. Jim Metrock’s Concerns over Army Use of Channel One 1. Concern about Channel One News’ focus on getting advertising/marketing in front of students, versus focus on education – Mr. Metrock’s voiced concern over the lost “hour” per week of valuable education time. [Again none of this has anything to do with my complaint. This is filler.] • Channel One is broadcast during homeroom and therefore that 12 minute broadcast does not infringe on classroom time dedicated to specific subjects. [This is not true. I can understand if Mr. Myers has never read the Channel One contract, but he should not be giving the reader the impression he knows the terms of the contract. He says that Channel One is only shown in a non-instructional period such as homeroom. Although this is usually the case, I know of many schools where it is shown in an academic class period. (ex. Shades Valley HS in Birmingham shows it in its “first block.” But my observations mean nothing. Channel One’s own contract states: “(2) Channel One News must be shown when students are present and seated in a homeroom or classroom setting“ http://help. • The schools recognize that this advertising helps to subsidize the cost and use of the equipment that can be used for other educational purposes throughout the school year. • We assume Channel One assesses approval from the various school boards of the various municipalities would and if not, that would be a local school issue. 2. Decline of # of schools from ’98 (12K schools), ’03 (~12K), ’05 (11K schools), ’10 (8K schools) [Mr. Myers attributes the massive decline from 8.1 million students to “nearly 6 million” to ONE cause. That is nonsense. That language reflects a non-analytical mind. Such a loss would never be attributed to a single reason. And the reason Channel One and the Army give makes no sense. The slowness of the change over to a DVR from VCR and other analog capabilities would be of no concern to schools because their viewing experience was going to be same. The picture wasn’t going to change much if at all because the old analog TV sets were going to remain.] 3. Can’t cover breaking news – Focus on Teen feature stories (less current events) 4. Conversion to digital video – Digital DVR satellite (used for advertising targeting) – See above (re: decline in schools). [Don’t know where I am confused, but the Army may be a little if they think this new equipment helps them make sure their ads are only shown in high schools. Channel One has always had a high school signal and a middle school signal as far as commercial content goes. Channel One has repeatedly stated this since at least 1997.] 5. Re-play of broadcasts online do not include advertising that is seen in classrooms [Channel One had no problem showing the entire program, including both commercial breaks, on their website before the purchase of the company by Alloy Media and Marketing in 2007. Advertising on the program got edgier once Alloy took over. It appears they want to make it extremely difficult for parents to see what is being advertised.] 6. Enforcement of contract (showtimes, etc.) [I believe this is incorrect. Nielsen only monitors around 200 schools as of 2011. To say Channel One supplies a list of all schools “utilizing” the program and Nielsen “verifies” each school is patently absurd. Either the Army has no idea how Nielsen operates or this was intentionally misleading or possibly Nielsen has given up on sampling when it comes to Channel One. I have no way of knowing.] it does not count in the numbers that are reported to advertisers. BDO Seidman also verifies the Channel One News’s school enrollment annually [BDO Seidman checks on signed contracts from schools. For years the company has had a signed contract from Pizitz Middle School in Vestavia Hills, AL stating that 1,100 students are being shown Channel One News. For the last four years hardly any student has seen the program and that’s OK by Channel One because they don’t want Seidman to subtract those students and therefore subtract from their ad revenue.] [Nielsen has never been a reliable gauge of Channel One’s viewership for very concrete reasons. On December 14, 1998 Channel One announced that Nielsen would begin an attempt to monitor their audience in the fall of 1999. Nielsen would equip 5 TV sets in each of 300 schools. (Channel One had over 12,000 schools at the time.) Nielsen then would monitor whether the program was shown in any of the five classrooms per school.
The problem Nielsen has always faced with Channel One is this is the only TV show they have ever attempted to monitor that has a punitive aspect to it. If a regular Nielsen-monitored family never tunes into Dancing With the Stars, no one is going to come to their home and take the family’s TVs away. That is the case with Channel One. Schools want the TV sets but they don’t necessarily want to spend school time showing the program. That’s why schools on a wholesale basis violate the contract. If you are a principal at a school that is being monitored by Nielsen you know about the monitoring (there would be heck to pay if Channel One tried to monitor students without the knowledge and permission of the school administration) and you know which classroom TV sets are recording compliance. A principal can easily choose to not show the program in all other classrooms. They may also be able to air Channel One in a monitored classroom when there are no students present. Because principals and their schools face the removal of their TV network (which they have long ago paid for with the loss of school time) if they are caught not showing the program, there is incentive to go around the meager Nielsen monitoring.
7. Ten minutes of news content; more than two minutes of advertising?
• This is how the 12-minute broadcast is formatted with a maximum of 2 minutes of advertisers (4 :30 units total) [The Army corrects their previous statement about 12 minutes of news. However, they are completely wrong about the maximum of 2 minutes of ads. Mr. Myers knows this is false because his own ad deal with Channel One gives him “bonus” ad time in the form of feature stories like the “Glory Road” and “Dream Strong” series and other advertorial content. The Army has helped create these extra advertising moments on the program yet has the nerve to say there isn’t extra advertising. On the Feb. 24, 2006 program six minutes of the program was devoted to promoting the U.S. Army. http://www.obligation. FY11 Advertising Recap
In FY11, we had 28 thirty-second units scheduled throughout the school year. In addition, we have special features running to support the All American Bowl, Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, etc. This year we also had four special Dream Strong features that showed the unique career paths of four different Army Soldiers. Our Channel One plan is guaranteed to deliver 563 Persons Age 15-17 Gross Rating Points. [How can Channel One guarantee any metric like GRP when their contracts with schools have become unenforceable? August 16, 2010 – Hernando High School officially ends their contract with Channel One News after 3 years of non-viewing. Those were three years the Army may have been paying for those Hernando High eyeballs. https://obligation.org/wp- BOTTOM LINE: The U.S. Army Accessions Command has long believed Channel One is a viable and reliable vehicle for getting our messages across to our target market. It is only one of many such vehicles, but it has proven its worth over the years. [Bottom line: At best this Army “White Paper” is a product of rushed and sloppy research and preparation. At worst, the Army has intentionally tried to mislead a U.S. Senator and the American public.] |
The US Army may be overspending on Channel One News ads.
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