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 Struggling in Shifting Market CEO of TV newscast confronts loss of ads and aging technology. By Rhea R. Borja (Culpeper, VA) http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/07/27/43channel.h24.html In a Culpeper Middle School classroom one rainy morning this past spring, the morning news aired on a wall-mounted television set: a deadly helicopter crash in Iraq, prescription drug abuse...
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"Time to party." This still is from Stealing Harvard. It is just one of the many Channel One News-advertised movies that send extremely dangerous drug and alcohol messages to young people. Stealing Harvard was advertised to young people on Channel One News. The alcohol content in the movie is sickening. The movie normalizes teen...
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Basketball star LeBron James shows Channel One News students how to blow a Bubblicious bubble. Children saw numerous Bubblicious bubble gum commercials on C1N this spring. More are coming. Bubble gum is a fitting product for Channel One News to advertise. The company can’t give up its deep ties to junk food. Obligation expects bubble gum...
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Introduction of band. End of show. All done during school time. Channel One turned over the April 27 show to a rock band that needed publicity. It was a beautiful deal: the band would play for free on Channel One News and in exchange get their music before millions of kids that couldn’t turn the TV off....
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Posted on Wed, Jul. 06, 2005 High school schedule to change Excelsior Springs board OKs late start By PATRICE R. HOLDERBACH The Kansas City Star Alyssa Jewell and her fellow classmates at Excelsior Springs High School have the option of sleeping in a tad later once a week next year. That’s because teachers will...
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Click here to see the commercial shown to middle school kids. (April 27, 2005) Obligation has just received tapes of Channel One News for April and May. One commercial caught our attention instantly. It shows how desperate Channel One has gotten. They can’t turn away any company’s ad money – no matter how...
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A screen shot from Channel One’s official web site. July 2005 This week Channel One added this "news" article to their web site. Stephanie Smith is a Channel One News employee that has a reputation for mindless drivel. The junk food culture of Channel One News runs deep. Notice Ms. Smith’s choice of subjects....
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Is longtime Channel One hack Derrick Shore perusing the want ads? Only Errol Barnett, new-comer Melissa Knowles and Seth Doane remain as Channel One News anchors. Sofia Lidskog is gone after a year. Derrick Shore, who has been at Channel One for over five years was either given the boot or resigned. Obligation’s...
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Tony Hawk, on left, shamelessly using school time to make himself a ton of cash. Today, millions of students from 6th grade to high school seniors had to watch Tony Hawk promote himself, his video games, and his summer tour. Tony Hawk was given permission to co-host the entire show. If you notice the...
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Yesterday, Channel One’s parent company PRIMEDIA issued a press release announcing an extraordinary addition to Channel One’s web site. Here is the press release: Wow, a "resource page" that is created "to inform and educate young people." Channel One has created a resource that will "encourage them to take on a more active...
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