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.
Note to Channel One: Take more time hiring your lobbyists. From Jim Metrock: This is getting ugly. Team Abramoff was a group of lobbyists in Washington DC that could move heaven and earth for those who paid them enough money. Channel One and their parent company PRIMEDIA paid A LOT of money to Team Abramoff from 1999 to 2004. What did...
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Cali Carlin surrounded by the band Taking Back Sunday. Taking Back Sunday is the name of a rock band. Taking Back Sunday just released a new CD "Louder Now" on April 25. Taking Back Sunday needs teens and preteens to buy "Louder Now" their new CD. Taking Back Sunday’s management arranged for...
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A lobbyist tied to Jack Abramoff has pled guilty to conspiracy. Tony Rudy like “Casino Jack” Abramoff did work for PRIMEDIA and Channel One Network along with other firms. Rudy’s and Abramoff’s troubles don’t have anything to do with Channel One, but the public needs to know the type of people that Channel One hired to represent them on Capitol Hill, at...
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Channel One News offers a lot of opportunities to advertisers. Advertisers are able to craft their sales pitches in unique ways on Channel One. Advertisements can be made to look like news stories. We have reported before on the use of fake news reporters being used in Channel One commercials. This past Friday, during a special Town Hall meeting with...
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This is an update to our April 3 article "Dear Channel One, Please Stop Your Deceptive Advertising." Obligation filed a complaint about the Fly Pen computer commercial to the Children Advertising Review Unit (CARU) an industry-funded watchdog group. We said we would post their reply to our complaint when we received it. Here...
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Channel One News has run numerous stories this school year highlighting athletes that have been named Gatorade Players of the Year in various sports. These reports have taken up tremendous amounts of educational time in schools that still have Channel One’s service. The main purpose of these stories is to sell more Gatorade to...
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To be mentioned in a front page newspaper story is a big deal. To be mentioned in a front page story in the New York Times is a really big deal. Yesterday, the Times reported on the modified soft drink pullout from schools. The deal does not affect Channel One’s ability to advertise junk drinks to children. “Gary Ruskin,...
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Judy Harris’s carefully crafted comments get examined. Channel One CEO Judy Harris "messages" at the National Governor’s Conference. 2/26/06 What Channel One’s Judy Harris had to say. What Obligation’s Jim Metrock had to say. Ms. Harris introduced. Why is Ms. Harris here? Why I joined Channel One. That isn’t what you said...
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Today PRIMEDIA announced their 1st quarter 2006 results. The revenue losses for Channel One are staggering. The past few years PRIMEDIA has separated out Channel One’s ad revenue. Up until that happened, the public had no idea how well Channel One was performing. We have posted below the quarterly results and company comments on Channel One. The fourth quarter of 2003...
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For the health of all the schoolchildren who are compelled to watch Channel One News under the threat of confiscation of their classroom TV sets, Obligation urges Channel One News to immediately terminate all advertising for Pepsico’s Gatorade. Obligation’s Jim Metrock said, "With the news today that soft drink companies are ending their...
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