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.
On January 23, 2006, Channel One began running a Verizon commercial whose purpose was to get young people to nag their parents for a cell phone with Verizon Wireless service. The commercial was pushing a new feature called “ringback.” When your friends call you they won’t hear the phone ringing, but instead will hear a song that you have...
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Students Remember More Ads Than News By CARLA K. JOHNSON The Associated Press Monday, March 6, 2006; 6:17 AM CHICAGO — Students remember more of the advertising than they do the news stories shown on Channel One, the daily public affairs program shown in 12,000 U.S. schools, a study has found. Students reported buying , or having...
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Channel One’s CEO Judy Harris Panel Discussion on Communicating Healthy Messages National Governor’s Conference, Washington, DC February 26, 2006 These ten video clips present every word spoken by Ms. Harris in the order she said them. It is impossible for us to put the video of the entire panel discussion on our site. Although...
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January 2, 2006 Part I From Jim Metrock: Channel One is done. It’s not “dead” but the American public does not need to wait for this controversial company to actually go out of business in order to celebrate. I have been following this company for ten years. There is little chance they can remain viable and reverse their...
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Pepsi sponsors Do-Something’s MLK Day message, or MLK Day is used to front for Pepsi’s return to classrooms. From Jim Metrock: I was working my way through January tapes of Channel One today when I was shocked to see Pepsi back on the show. It happened on January 5 and several other days...
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Yesterday’s press release from PRIMEDIA (Channel One’s parent company) didn’t have much to say about C1N: Channel One took significant steps in 2005. With the appointment of Judy Harris to CEO and President in April, the division has begun to broaden its revenue base and is developing partnership and sponsorship opportunities with corporations and...
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Video from Channel One News – January 4, 2006 From Jim Metrock: Rich DeMuro lays out the Jack Abramoff scandal for the student audience. He mentions "clients" and "favors" but fails to disclose the connection between Abramoff and Channel One News. DeMuro’s employer was a major Abramoff client for many years. DeMuro probably...
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Channel One anchor Seth Doane and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings. From Jim Metrock: On Tuesday, February 14, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings appeared on Channel One. She was shown answering questions from high school students at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. Channel One called this short "Q&A" session a "Town Hall" meeting. BPI is a...
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Channel One News is turning over huge portions of its daily "news" show to Olympic coverage. Why do that? After all, the NBC network is devoting a record 416 hours of broadcast time to the Games. Young people have an incredible amount of opportunities to watch this event if they so desire. Matter of...
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Feb. 10, 2006 Ex-Abramoff client subpoenaed in Republican fundraising probe Channel One’s parent donated to TRMPAC before education board’s vote on resolution By CLAY ROBISON and R.G. RATCLIFFE Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau AUSTIN – New subpoenas issued by Travis County prosecutors on Thursday cast light on a campaign contribution made by Primedia...
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