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.
Jim Metrock conducts a fake interview with Channel One’s president Judy Harris. From Jim Metrock: I have given up on actually talking with Judy Harris. I have emailed her, called her, and I have gone by her office in New York City several times (I never got past the desk in the...
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Primedia Chairman ecstatic over dumping of Channel One. Primedia’s chairman Dean Nelson answered questions about the embarrassing "sale" of Channel One during today’s First Quarter financial conference call. One analyst asked if there was any tax benefit from the sale of Channel One. After all, Primedia, then known as K-III Communications, had bought...
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William Weldon Chairman and CEO, Johnson & Johnson First inductee into the Public Education Hall of Shame The new owners of Channel One are bringing back product ads to the in-school TV show. Virtually all product advertisers have disappeared from the show over the last three years. Alloy, Inc. have bought a ticking...
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From Jim Metrock: It is getting impossible for Channel One News to feature a school on its show that actually watches Channel One News. On today’s show, Channel One focused on an academic team from Vestavia Hills High School, in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham. This is a school I know something...
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Channel One and Al Gore are buddies. When employees leave Channel One many of them immediately get jobs at Gore’s Current.tv. It is no surprise that Channel One would devote a considerable part of one of its shows to promoting Gore’s version of environmental activism. Last Friday, Channel One sponsored a Sheryl Crow concert...
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Channel One employees should let their feelings out. It is not healthy to keep all that pain bottled up inside. From Alloy’s April 26, 2007 SEC filing 8-K "Pursuant to the Channel One Asset Purchase Agreement, Alloy acquired the operating assets of Channel One from PRIMEDIA, by assuming certain liabilities of Channel One....
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Alloy’s CEO Matt Diamond Plunging revenue attracts him to C1N. From Jim Metrock: I listened to this morning’s Alloy conference call. The purpose of the call was to discuss and answer questions about the company’s acquisition of Channel One and another company. After Alloy’s CEO Matt Diamond talked about why Channel One was a...
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From Jim Metrock: Alloy, Inc. will be the new owner of Channel One. The long financial nightmare for Primedia will soon end. The long financial nightmare for Alloy has already begun. Alloy has advertised on Channel One News so their executives know, or should know, the controversy that will come along with ownership of...
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Cali Carlin HAD to report on the sadness at Virginia Tech and how students are coping. Her report was a tough way for high school students to start their school day. Even if students are wanting not to think about the murders, Channel One News won’t let them. More coverage is planned for tomorrow....
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What a way to start a school day: Channel One’s Alexander Marquardt tells sixth graders that over 30 people were gunned down. If it bleeds, it leads. Top story on Channel One Tuesday morning (April 17) was "GUNMAN SHOT AND KILLED MORE THAN THIRTY PEOPLE." from today’s transcript: ALEXANDER: HI EVERYBODY. WELCOME TO CHANNEL...
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