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.
From Jim Metrock: This is my email to Parry Aftab the executive director of WiredSafety.org. She appeared on a Channel One show that helped introduced millions of young people to Myspace.com an extremely dangerous site f not only for preteens but high school students. Ms. Aftab did respond to my email but it would...
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This is from Channel One’s February 6 transcript. The Super Bowl is the top story. Notice how Channel One tries to get some positive message from some of the football players. C1N believes that any feature story can be filler if it contains a "You can do it, kids" moment . The C1N reporter...
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This video clip from Channel One will start with a recruitment ad for the Army and then go immediately into a feature story about a high school football player from Kentucky. Channel One News is cutting back on their news stories because they are too expensive to produce. Shooting footage like this is relatively cheap and requires little...
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Obligation, Inc. P. O. Box 26270 Birmingham, AL 25260 www.obligation.org For Release: January 30, 2006 Contact: Jim Metrock 205.822.0080 EDITORIAL MEMORANDUM: Did Governor Bob Riley Reverse Himself On Channel One To Benefit Adviser’s Client? Ralph Reed’s Secret Funding Of Dax Swatek’s Sham “Coalition.” In August 2003, Alabama Governor Bob Riley was on the verge of sending...
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Gameboy commercial on Channel One News (taken from a middle school broadcast) From Jim Metrock: Pediatricians hate this type of ad. I know. I have shown similar Channel One ads to two committees of the American Academy of Pediatrics. One was the Public Education committee and the other the Council on School Health....
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Cingular’s commercial on Channel One News. (taken from a middle school broadcast) During December 2005, Cingular Wireless ran their normal ads for wireless cell phone service and for their pay-as-you-go GO phones. In addition, they ran commercial in middle schools, as well as high schools, for the ROKR cell phone that utilizes Apple’s...
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Why advertise this in classroom? Subway is one of the remaining advertisers on Channel One News. They also appear to be one of the more mean-spirited advertisers – or, at the very least, a very mischievous one. Subway sponsors segments on Channel One called “One Step To A Better Me.” These are short feature stories that promote better nutrition...
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Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff PRIMEDIA EMPLOYED LOBBYIST ABRAMOFF FOR CHANNEL ONE Controversial In-School Network Faced Several Legislative Threats January 11, 2006 By Ira Teinowitz WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) — Add Primedia to the list of media clients caught up in the Jack Abramoff lobbying disclosures. Mr. Abramoff’s guilty plea has sparked expectations that it would affect members of Congress, and...
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On Friday, January 6, Channel One turned over a very large portion of their “news” segment to help their advertiser, the U.S. Army. The Army sponsors a high school all-star game every year. Incredibly, Channel One made this game their most significant “news” story of the day. Time yourself as you read these words out loud and then...
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Channel One’s disgraced lobbyist pleads guilty in D. C. today. Does Channel One have anything to worry about? Or will Channel One claim Casino Jack overcharged them like the Indian tribes? We will wait and see. One thing for sure – Channel One and Primedia wish they had never heard of Mr. Abramoff.
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