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.
* Song title from Missy Elliott. Missy Elliott is a rap singer whose lyrics are filled with violence, graphic sex and an incredible amount of drug references. Her musical world is an ugly, raunchy, doped up world. This week Channel One News is promoting Ms. Elliott’s latest endeavor – a TV show on UPN. Channel One is helping...
Read More »
Obligation has just reviewed November tapes of Channel One News and have found that the show is still considerably over the limit of 12 minutes. Most shows are 30 to 40 seconds over 12 minutes which is a violation of the contracts with many schools. Many schools have contracts that state Channel One News will deliver a 12-minute...
Read More »
On December 20, Channel One news anchors told the students that they would not be reporting on any news stories until January 3. That is a 15-day holiday for the crack news team at Channel One. Unfortunately for Channel One’s anchors and producers, the news doesn’t take a two-week break. On Christmas Day, the earthquake occurred in the...
Read More »
The nine-year campaign by Obligation to raise awareness of Channel One’s exploitation of schoolchildren has paid off. We are close to victory… Channel One News is “damaged goods.” Executives, staffers and advertisers have scurried off the “good ship” Channel One News. Revenues have plunged at the company. They had to move out of their fancy Madison Avenue offices. Schools...
Read More »
ALABAMA Alabama Department of Education Gordon Persons Office Building 50 North Ripley Street P.O. Box 302102 Montgomery, AL 36130-2101 (334) 242-9700 FAX: (334) 242-9708 E-Mail: [email protected] URL: http://www.alsde.edu ALASKA Alaska Department of Education Suite 200 801 West 10th Street Juneau, AK 99801-1894 (907) 465-2800 FAX: (907) 465-4156 URL: http://www.educ.state.ak.us ARIZONA Arizona Department of Education...
Read More »
In 1997, Forbes magazine reported Channel One News made $70,000,000 in revenue in 1996. Earlier this year, PRIMEDIA, Channel One’s parent company, reported that Channel One News made $10,000,000 in the first quarter ending March 31, 2004. We have reported on this before, but it is important to review this stunning information as we go into 2005 to understand the...
Read More »
Above: Actual images from today’s (12/15/04) showing of Channel One News. Students hear “Rock your senses!” over and over. This is a play on Herbal Essence’s signature “orgasmic” theme. It may appear that the woman in today’s Herbal Essence commercial is naked, but she has a towel around her. Here Channel One News goes AGAIN allowing sex...
Read More »
Ken McNatt has done a content analysis of 25 episodes of Channel One News. We have included his observations along with a link to his web site for the full story. “The breakdown for the first 25 episodes can be summed up as follows: – About 12.25 minutes per episode – A little over 7.25 minutes of...
Read More »
http://www.thetranscript.com/Stories/0,1413,103%257E9043%257E2569420,00.html A former indentured student writes about her Channel One News experiences in the North Adams Transcript (MA). “There are also better ways to encourage teenagers to take an interest in the world and its news than plugging them into the commercial laden news magazine called Channel One.” Thanks to Ken McNatt.
Read More »
We have reported about Channel One’s unethical use of school time to advertise the movie “Finding Gracie.” Channel One violated its own “news standards” by merging advertising into the news portion of the show. “Finding Gracie” is not a typical movie. It is a gimmick by another one of Channel One’s advertisers – Gatorade. Gatorade is helping to...
Read More »
