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.
Duluth High School From: Jim Metrock: I was in Atlanta on other business today and decided during my free time to call on schools in and around Duluth. Channel One Network has a major office in Duluth (Greater Atlanta).You would think Channel One would have all the schools in the area sewn up. I was, however, expecting to find the...
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From Jim Metrock: After ten years of reporting on the content on Channel One, I shouldn’t be shocked by anything they do. But I was today. This morning I received an email from a parent in Virginia. His 12-year-old daughter told him that she would rather read in the hallway rather than sit in her classroom and...
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From Jim Metrock: Channel One News is a news show that promises a lot, but delivers little. In their press releases Channel One calls their own company " the preeminent news and public affairs content provider to teens." Nobody else calls them "preeminent" but America is a great country and you can pretty much...
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See the lineup at: http://www.channelonenetwork.com/corporate/bios/advisory_board/ From Jim Metrock: A few weeks ago, Channel One News announced the members of their “Advisory Board.” If you click on the link above you will come to the bios of each board member. They have several things in common. All the board members are teachers. Although some of them may be parents,...
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Channel One’s reporter C
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8,000+ local school board members met at McCormick Place April 8-10 From Jim Metrock: For three days earlier this month, I manned Obligation’s exhibit booth at the National School Boards Association’s annual conference in Chicago. The sole purpose of the booth was to let school board members and superintendents know that they don’t have...
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Channel One News announced this week that they will close their Hollywood studio, often called "The Hacienda." The company will relocate the remaining production staff at an unidentified location in Washington, DC. Channel One’s public relations firm tried to spin this shocking news as a positive story, but it is clear Channel One News...
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8,000+ local school board members met at McCormick Place April 8-10 From Jim Metrock: Wow. What a thrilling time I have had in Chicago. Obligation had a booth at the National School Boards Association convention. I manned the booth by myself and was busy handing out information to board members and local superintendents from across the country....
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Picture taken from the actual commercial Channel One aired in classrooms. Looks like regular paper. From Jim Metrock: Channel One News is now advertising the FLY Pentop Computer by LeapFrog. The ads are aimed at the very youngest in C1N’s captive audience (5th through 8th grade students). LeapFrog has struggled over the last few years....
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Channel One’s Errol Barnett showcases teens who skip school to protest. From Jim Metrock: This week, I received a Google news alert that referred to an incident at an Arizona high school. I was in the middle of a project so I just glanced at the news article. This is the article: From the Arizona Daily...
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