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.
"Today we know very well cigarette smoking kills 4000 smokers, 50,000 nonsmokers and more important, we have strong data that smoking in the movies encourages kids to smoke," says Dr. Stanton Glantz, director of UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. A new report by Commercial Alert shows that 6 out...
Read More »
On Friday, September 9, Channel One advertised two junk food products. Hubba Bubba Max bubble gum and Gatorade. Hubba Bubba is one of Wrigley’s sugary products. The commercial today was a new one featuring a polar bear who stuffs his face with Hubba Bubba bubble gum. The ad is a satire on the R-rated movie Fargo. Commercial content...
Read More »
Students who wear glasses must dread being forced to watch Channel One. Earlier this year we reported on an insensitive commercial for Acuvue contact lens. This month Channel One has approved another hard-hitting Acuvue ad aimed at teens and preteens. In this ad a male student is a relay runner on the school track team. He likes being...
Read More »
Scenes from "The OC" (Second Season) "OC" stands for Orange County, CA. The OC is one of Fox Network’s TV shows that normalize alcohol and drug use among young people. The sexual content on the show is extreme. The OC made headlines in its second season when two characters develop a lesbian relationship. The...
Read More »
"Reporter" interviews students about Clear & Clean. Guess what? They like it a lot. Mixing news with advertising is routine at Channel One. any journalist weep. Since the beginning of this school year, Channel One has been running a Clear & Clean ad that would make true journalists weep. After a regular, network...
Read More »
If your middle school student didn’t know the street names for methamphetamine, Melissa Knowles, Channel One anchor will make sure he or she learns them. All these pictures are from Channel One’s feed to middle school students. Some in the audience are as young as ten. Students are shown the various ways that meth is ingested. On one hand...
Read More »
Verizon Wireless has become one of the main advertisers on Channel One. Verizon didn’t ask for permission to come into classrooms. They did not seek the approval of any school board or superintendent or even the "OK" from principals. Verizon is taking up school time with its advertising only because they inked a deal...
Read More »
Channel One News, your “Dead Body” station. The first week of Channel One News has got to have teachers very concerned. The graphic images being presented to pre-teens are appalling, even by Channel One’s standards. Dead bodies are everywhere and middle school students are getting the same gory feed that the high school students are receiving. On Thursday,...
Read More »
Channel One News was born with the help of money-grabbing politicians (example: Lamar Alexander) and it continues today by paying elected officials (example: the majority of Alabama state board of education members have received money from Channel One’s lobbyist Martin Christie). Channel One’s army of lobbyists had a general -Jack Abramoff. We at Obligation...
Read More »
If a tree falls in a forest with no one to hear it, does it make a sound? Channel One News started their broadcasts today, but who cares? The show has become irrelevant to students and teachers. The TV sets often don’t work or school officials have unplugged the cables from Channel One’s satellite...
Read More »
