Originally published March 17, 2005. Kids don’t mess with Channel One’s attorneys. In 2012, the practice of using small print and large amounts of legal mumbo jumbo to confuse young people continues at Channel One News.
Before we explain the strange language above, how about a little quiz?
Watch this video clip from the end of a Channel One show. The questions will pertain to what you read on the video clip. It will play at the actual speed students saw it in their classrooms. Obligation didn’t speed it up, honest.
You can watch it as many times as you want before taking the quiz. Please do not pause the clip because students don’t have a “pause button” in the classroom. We have made this video file as clear as we can.
Click here when you are ready.
Now the quiz:
A. How old must you be to enter the promotion?
B. What company is being promoted?
C. What is the maximum number of callers that will be accepted in the contest?
D. If you win a prize, you give permission for only your first name and state of residence to be made known. True or false.
E. How much is the prize worth?
That’s it. Fairly easy if you could have read it. This information is required to be delivered to students because Channel One’s advertiser is engaged in a contest. Instead of making this information clear and understandable, Channel One has done just the opposite. Even if the words are clear on the screen – and they are not, because Channel One’s TVs are usually 19″ sets near the classroom ceiling – the speed of the scroll makes it impossible for students to comprehend any important information.
This bizarre language in the headline is also in the small print. We kid you not.
“By entering this promotion, implied permission is given to Channel One News to air selected entrants’ name, age, school name, city and state of residence, and voice recording in connection with the Channel One News Question of the Day answer segment and all elements thereof, including but not limited to broadcasting, promotional and online purposes in any and all media whether now existing or hereafter devised throughout the universe in perpetuity. “
Good grief.
Why write language like this for kids?
This nonsense comes from Channel One’s attorneys. They want to make absolutely sure no 13-year-old wiggles through some loophole. What they are saying is, “Kid, if you take the prize, we are going to use your picture and name on air and on the Internet, and, and … on any new media that may be invented in the future and not just here on Earth but, eh, on Mars, yeah, on Mars and any other planet in our Solar System… or outside it.”
All this boilerplate language for a prize that isn’t much of a prize. A winning student will receive a Nokia or LG cellular phone and three months of Cingular Wireless service for free. Big deal.
Anyone who has a cellphone knows what is going on here. This is all about locking a young person into a contract. Get the phone in their hands and give them a small service plan for three months and the parents will spring for the multi-year contract. The phone, which Channel One says is worth hundreds of dollars, is routinely given free to purchasers of Cingular contracts.
Obligation’s Jim Metrock said, “You would think Channel One News executives would get weary of scamming children. They don’t. The whole point of the ‘Cingular Question of the Day’ feature is to get a ‘free’ cellphone in the hands of middle school and high school students and hope parents will be nagged into signing a contract with Cingular. Many parents may not want their child to own a cellphone. Any child compelled to watch Channel One News sees at least one Cingular commercial each school day. Channel One News makes a child feel incomplete and ‘uncool’ if they don’t own a cellphone.”
### Note: This clip of Channel One News is shown in the part of the show that is edited out for parental review. You will never see this scrolling disclaimer for students on the channelone.com video archives. Channel One always cuts out the first and last segments of the show before putting them on their web site. This makes effective monitoring by parents impossible.
Answers: A. At least 13, B. Cingular Wireless, C. 1000, D. False. Channel One requires not only a child’s full name, but also their age, school name, city and state of residence, and a personal picture for purposes of publicity. E. $379.00.
