Channel One News is a youth marketing company whose main purpose is to get advertising to a captive audience of impressionable schoolchildren. The company loans a school TV equipment in exchange for the school’s contractual pledge to show students a daily, 12-minute, hyper-commercial, TV program called Channel One News. Students lose one hour a week of schools time, which equates to one lost week of instructional time (32 hours) per year. No educational organization endorses the use of Channel One News.
Channel One has fallen on very hard times. Once they claimed over 8 million students were under contract. Since 1997 they have continued to lose schools and now they claim “nearly five million” students and the true figure is probably lower.
In May 2014, publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt acquired Channel One from ZelnickMedia the makers of the ultra-violent Grand Thief Auto video game series. Houghton Mifflin did not disclose the purchase price.
At the end of 2014 most of Channel One’s full-paying advertisers have abandoned the program.
Sixth grade students forced to watch Channel One News see this shocking public service announcement (PSA) on August 22, 2008. Teachers were not given a warning that this spot was going to be shown. This just came on the classroom TV screen and students as young as ten just had to deal with...
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These are the first words on a public service announcement that is currently playing on Channel One’s MIDDLE SCHOOL broadcast. This is from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, an ad industry group that has produced many exceptional PSAs. Channel One has a long history of airing age-inappropriate PSAs to its younger audience. By...
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Has Steven Lisowski changed his name to "Steven Fabian" so his reputation doesn’t get damaged working for Channel One News? As far as we know this is the first time a budding, wannabe reporter for Channel One has used a stage name. The freshest thing about this first show is the pretty purple logo....
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Earlier this year we wrote about a contest Channel One News ran to help Dreamworks get students excited about a summer movie called Kung Fu Panda. We now have the video of this contest. Actor Jack Black addresses the students directly. He is offering them a role in this movie. (The officials rules only...
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We regret to say that we were premature in saying Channel One News had stopped advertising prescription drugs to children. As you can see, two days after our August 12 article an ad for the prescription drug BenzaClin was back on Channel One’s web site. The ad is on the right of the page...
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From Jim Metrock: Two of last year’s three anchors are not returning to Channel One News. Tony Anderson and Chris Browne didn’t make it one full year. The two new anchors are Steven Lisowski and Justin Finch. They join Jessica Kumari back for her second year. We don’t know if Channel One fired...
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Hooray! Prescription drug ads appear to have been removed from Channel One’s children’s web site. I never received a reply from Dr. Paul Folkemer, Channel One’s VP of Education who is usually very involved in Channel One’s advertising decisions. It must be with great reluctance that the company pulled these ads. These ads for...
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It’s August 11 and the Channel One News crew hasn’t shown up for work. All across the country students are filing into their classrooms. Some students have been already been in school for a week or more. Channel One would normally be pushing their advertising on kids by this date, but as we have...
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Dr. Paul Folkemer calls himself the "child advocate at Channel One News." From Jim Metrock: It’s August 2 and Channel One is still advertising a prescription drug on its web site. (It appears the BenzaClin ads are gone, but the Differin ads are still there.) Obligation joined with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free...
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News Release from Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and Obligation July 30, 2008 Contact: Josh Golin (617.278.4172; [email protected]) Jim Metrock (205.822.0080; [email protected]) For Immediate Release Advocates to Channel One: Stop Marketing Prescription Drugs to Children Advocates for children are demanding that Alloy Media and Marketing immediately remove ads for prescription drugs from its Channel...
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