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.
"we can get some friends do it like the ying yang twins wait til’ you see my… wait til’ you see my…" Today, September 14, 2006 is Chris Brown Day on Channel One News. Chris Brown? Who is he? Well, if you were forced to watch Channel One News, you would know....
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There are two parts to Channel One News. One is the in-school TV show that has caused controversy for the last 16 years. The other part is Channelone.com which has been equally controversial since it was launched in 1996. Schools that signed up for Channel One News – the TV show, never agreed to...
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When a Channel One News show comes on a classroom TV set, students and teachers should be asking a few questions. Media literacy is about better understanding the media messages that come at us so fast that they usually escape critical thinking. It is ironic that the one TV show that needs to be...
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Oops, they did it again. It is difficult to get any true figures on how many schools still have Channel One. We know that their revenue has been cut in half over the years, so that would indicate that advertisers believe their audience is much less than before. Still, the public has to rely...
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On August 17, Channel One added this language to their channelone.com website: WIRELESS MARKETING SERVICES AND PROMOTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES ChannelOne.com may provide its users and viewers with the opportunity to register for special promotions, services, news, programming and information delivered via text messaging and other wireless devices such as mobile phones. Users are required to...
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Obligation has said it for ten years: Channel One’s TV show and its website are not age-appropriate for middle school students. Now Channel One agrees with us, at least about the Channel One website. Below: Last month, this new language was very quietly placed on Channelone.com: The bold print is Channel One’s. If you...
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Barack Obama is the junior U. S. Senator from Illinois. Yesterday, Channel One ran a lengthy report on his recent visit to Africa. It was puzzling why Channel One’s producers chose this story for their broadcast. There were so many other more newsworthy stories to cover on August 30 when this show was taped....
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"Prior to installing Channel One, the district schools had a program called ‘sustained silent reading,’ in which everyone in the schools stopped what they were doing every day for fifteen minutes and read something–a book, a magazine article, an assignment–in total silence. Channel One replaced the reading." This is an article we recently...
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From Jim Metrock: Channel One’s daily TV show is suppose to have no more than two minutes of commercial content. That promise is written into its contract. School boards relied on that promise, as well as others in the contract, terms of agreement, and Channel One’s news standards, when they agreed to turn over...
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"Tick" video. (This is what preteens watched on August 29, 2006) A new and equally ominous spot from Environmental Defense has been approved by Channel One. The new video is called "Tick." Various children are shown saying, "Tick." That is "tick" as in time bomb. This is another "death play" by ED. Children will...
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