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 today’s PRIMEDIA press release: “The Education Segment continued to experience advertising revenue declines in 2004, due largely to the performance of Channel One. The concern by certain advertisers about the obesity issue in schools caused them to stop or reduce advertising into schools. The decline was somewhat mitigated by a number of new advertisers that Channel One...
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If you have a child in secondary school and he or she wears glasses and he or she attends a school that still shows Channel One News, then your child is probably dreading the next Channel One program. For the last several weeks, Channel One has approved and aired a hard-hitting, insensitive commercial for Acuvue contact lens. The purpose...
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Last week, Alabama handed Channel One a major setback. The State Board of Education voted 5-1, with one abstaining, to recommend Channel One News refrain from advertising junk food, over-the-counter medicine, and movies that receive a rating based on sexual, violent, alcohol or drug content. Students were well served by this action. As other...
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Give Vanessa Carlton a Grammy for “unmitigated gall.” The students at Red Mountain High School in Mesa, Arizona thought they won a Channel One contest and the first prize was a Vanessa Carlton concert at their school. On the surface that appears to be just what happened, but it doesn’t take much brainpower to understand that this high...
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Click to print out our newest brochure “10 Reasons Why Channel One News is Unhealthy for Students.” (PDF format)
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From Jim Metrock: The president and CEO of Channel One News has left the building. Jim Ritts is out. In a move that shakes the company to its core, Channel One did not offer any explanation or reason for his departure. Ritts was there at the beginning of the company in 1988. (Channel One was rolled out nationally...
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A routine reporting of a student health committee report turned into a big victory for supporters of commercial-free classrooms. The Alabama State Board of Education passed amended language to a committee report that calls for Channel One to “refrain from advertising high-sugar, high-fat, low-nutritional food and drink products, over-the-counter medicines, and movies that receive a MPAA rating for sexual, violent,...
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Actual screen shot from a middle school broadcast of Channel One News. Abortion is an explosive issue among adults. Adults have differing views on when life begins. The executives at Channel One News believe that preteens should be thinking about abortion. They have attempted to engage children in a conversation about this hot issue. (No need to let parents...
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Amy and Ephram Somebody at Channel One loves the WB’s Everwood show on Monday nights. It has been advertised as much as any other TV show on Channel One, with the possible exception of Dawson’s Creek. It is age-inappropriate for high school students, and most certainly for middle school students. Channel One promotes this TV show to children as young...
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These are some of Missy Elliott’s tamer lyrics. This song is entitled Ecstasy. It’s her loving tribute to the “party” drug Ecstasy. Yo I’m on FIRE!!!!! People go head and drink up Get in the club get f****d up See me you got get lucked up Someone to touch your rubber Show me some love,...
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