From Jim Metrock:
Things are happening.
Maybe there are some good things happening for Channel One News. I
am sure there must be. Maybe you have signed up a new school here and
there. Maybe you have signed up a new advertiser. These may be helpful,
but each of you must know what I know and what anyone who sees your
program knows… it’s the end of the line.
Channel One News is running out of steam. It is simply out-of-step
with the real world of public schools in 2003.
There are a number of reasons for why Channel One News is a shell
of its former self. One is the movement to block scheduling. Who would
have thought that this modification of the school day would wreak so
much havoc on your company. Many states, like Alabama, do not allow
your TV show to be shown in academic classes. "It’s not instructional,
so you can’t show it in any instructional period." Therefore it
must be shown in homeroom, but block scheduling often does away with
homeroom. Therefore your show was just turned off. There was no space
for it anymore.
As your Georgia office knows too well, many schools show the program
before school begins each day. Your advertisers hate that. Few students
are in their classrooms to see your anchors or your ads.
Some schools show your program during lunch period as background noise
to a lot of noise. They aren’t suppose to do it, but they do. Why?
Because Channel One is not in any position to stop it.
Your bosses claim an audience of 8.1 million students. That is utter
nonsense. I now estimate that no more than 40% of your audience watches
on any one day. Even that may be too high. I know of no school in Alabama
that honors your contract. None.
For years your company allowed schools to not show the program according
to the contract terms. Just last year, your president Mr. Ritts wrote
David Miles a pro-Channel One principal in Alabama and told him that
he didn’t need to keep track of how often he was showing the program.
Mr. Ritts didn’t mention the 90% of school days requirement. Remember
the 80% of all classrooms requirement? That is gone and for good reason.
Schools are rebelling and your company is scrambling to change the
contract. The contract is now so weak that I doubt your lawyers can
hold any school to its terms.
Your company is in a mess. You know that. You know that the New York
employees had to vacate their nice Madison Avenue office. They are
now with their buddies in About.com’s building. You know that the Atlanta
office has had to move. You know that the advertisers are very reluctant
to put their products on your show. You know the heat is on your company
in various states.
Your company has a history of bad managers who make bad decisions.
Remember Channel One president David Tanzer? Do any of you remember
his truly dreadful Today Show performance opposite Alex Molnar? Tanzer,
of course, got the ax.
Then there was Kevin McAliley. I remember meeting him in a U.S. Senate
hearing room after an ASCD education meeting. He was an angry CEO.
I thought he was going to punch me when we met. (You aren’t suppose
to be Angry Man when you are a CEO.) A few months later, he suddenly
is gone, ultimately to be replaced by the ghost from Whittle days,
Jim "Sugar Daddy" Ritts.
Do any of you agree with me that Ritts was hired because Tom Rogers
(who himself was fired this year) couldn’t find anyone who wanted the
job? Ritts had the Whittle baggage and the Digital Entertainment Network
baggage. Notice how the fortunes of your company have gone since Ritts
has taken the helm.
This past May 8, Mr. Ritts approved turning the entire Channel One
News show over to a guest host from the movie X-Men 2. Ritts thinks
this is fine. Did any of you tell him that what he was doing was wrong?
Did any of you warn him that stunts like this are going to get your
company kicked out of thousands of schools?
The decisions to mix ads with the news content was made by your top
executives. Each of you should have know that this is a killer for
your company. Your company is about to pay the price for telling schools
one thing and doing something else. Why didn’t any of you stand up
to the Morgan Wandells and Jim Morrises and Kent Haehls? If you cared
about your product, Channel One News, you would have done what you
could to stop the internal destruction of your company.
Of course, I like your executives making it easy on me and the others
who want your company out of our schools.
I couldn’t pick a better spokesperson for your company than Jeff Ballabon.
I think more than a few of you would agree with me that Mr. Ballabon
has a real problem with telling the whole truth.
Think about "All-Request Thursday", what moron thought that
would be something that would enhance your image with educators? Can
you point to the person who has turned your web site into a hyper-commercial
junk yard? Go to your company’s web site and look at it from a middle
school teacher’s perspective. Your company has forgotten its mission.
Who was the mastermind that thought advertising Twinkies and Pepsi
was a "good thing" to do? OK, it was your president Jim Ritts,
but is your whole company just a bunch of "yes people"?
Look around at your company. Look around at the people who you work
with. Look at the product you put out. Then ask yourself "What
company would want to buy this?"
Your company has been up for sale for a long while now. You have also
been searching for an investor that could pump in new money to keep
your company going in case nobody wanted to buy your firm.
Well, nobody wants your company. Who would want all this controversy?
Apparently, none of you tried to stop the advertising of the long
list of violent and vulgar movies. None of you appears to have even
questioned the advertising of junk food to children. You each had a
duty to the schoolchildren that pay your salaries and benefits. Some
of these children are ten-years-old. You let them down. You let them
down Big Time.
You should never have agreed to work for a company that converts precious,
limited school time into advertising revenue. But once you decided
to work for Channel One News, you failed on a massive scale to maintain
the little bit of integrity that was left in this company.
You knew that your company was to have no more than two minutes of
commercial time each day, yet you allowed your bosses to fudge on the
time. If you are an anchor, you knew you weren’t suppose to have guest
hosts plugging products. You knew your own news standards disallowed
that practice, but you went along so your paycheck would continue.
Shame on you.
Instead of treating your captive audience with care and special attention,
you treated them like the target-market your sales literature talks
about. They never were just a "target", but you guys never
understood that.
I could go on.
Your paychecks keep coming only because the U.S. federal government
is continuing to send money for their PSAs and military ads. However,
things are changing in D.C. and hopefully that money will be drying
up next year.
My main point is this: when your company goes under, it will be because
of the actions or inactions of the Channel One employees, such as you.
You have nobody but yourself to blame.
