Channel One CEO Kent Haehl uses a Promethean white board to show his company's negative growth
Today Keystone Enterprise Services (Salt Lake City, UT) announced they would retain their contract to maintain Channel One’s TV equipment in schools.
In their press release Keystone has given the public a little more information about the very secretive Channel One company. The news isn’t good for the kiddie marketers at Channel One. Keystone didn’t want to create negative publicity for Channel One, but they did.
From the release: “Keystone will continue to supply turnkey satellite network and support services for direct to school news broadcast of Channel One News, which reaches over five million young people on a daily basis in approximately 230,000 classrooms and 7,500 schools.”
This indicates Channel One has suffered yet again another significant loss of schools in the last few six months. The last report from Channel One in September of this year – three months ago – stated the company had “nearly 5.5 million” students under contract. That itself was a shocker because the previous statement of audience size in June 0f this year said their audience was “nearly 6 million.”
“Over 5 million” means barely over 5 million. If it was close to 5.5 million, like before, they would say “nearly 5.5 million.” This is how companies paint the rosiest picture they can of audience numbers. So Channel One has probably lost a few hundred thousand student viewers since the start of the school year.
In the “About Channel One” footnote to the press release Channel One says they have “nearly 6 million” students. This is contradicting the “over 5 million” stated by Keystone in the body of the release. Since Keystone is the company in charge of knowing the status of all Channel One’s school accounts, it makes sense that their figures are more accurate. Plus Channel One has a long history of fudging their audience claims in their sales literature.
When Keystone says Channel One has “approximately 230,000 classrooms” that means it is less than 230,000. Compare that to the 440,000 classrooms Channel One boasted they had in 1999.
In the summer of 2011, Channel One had 7,800 schools under contract. Now Keystone says there are “7,500” schools.
Obligation’s Jim Metrock said, “Schools no longer have time for Channel One’s nonsense. Academic time can’t be wasted anymore. The silliness and the often age-inappropriateness of Channel One’s content is angering school administrators, teachers, parents, and students. Channel One’s recent partnership with white board manufacturer Promethean in an effort to muscle into elementary schools will be a financial disaster for both firms. The downward spiral is accelerating for Channel One. The recent loss of half of their news anchors shows the employees are heading for the exits.”
