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.
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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The Army has been a major advertiser on C1N for years. On Friday, February 24, Channel One devoted half of its program to US Army-related content. During the first of two commercial breaks, students watch a very odd 30-second spot. Students don’t know what they are watching. The small “US Army” logo at the end of the commercial...
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Spendora High School, TX before the first bell North Mason High School, WA made optional Bishop O’Reilly High School, PA shown in its entirety before students enter classrooms Avon Park Middle School, FL background noise for breakfast As Channel One News becomes more and more irrelevant, schools find more...
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Jon Lovitz is a comedian. Apparently, so is Channel One’s CEO Judy Harris. It has to be a joke, right? Why else is comedian Jon Lovitz on the classroom TV screen? Channel One’s approval of this latest Subway ad wouldn’t make sense unless it was all a dirty joke played on students. At the first of this 2005-06...
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