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.
Stephanie Smith is a Channel One News employee. She wrote this article that “winks” at cheating on a book report. This Channel One writer knows she is writing for children. She makes it clear that she knows many would think of watching the movie version as opposed to reading an assigned book. Excuse us, Stephanie, you are wrong. Most...
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You wouldn’t think ANY Catholic school would have a contract with Channel One News. A church-run school that tolerates the advertising of drug and alcohol movies and sexually charged movies and TV shows to students is a church-run school that has many more problems than Channel One. (Note: Channel One continues to advertise PG-13 movies to middle schoolchildren.)...
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Kent Haehl is Channel One’s sales manager. His job is to find and sign new advertisers. He knows the people at Sony Pictures very well. Haehl agreed to promote Sony’s drug/alcohol drenched "Loser" movie in 2000, the raunchy animated 2002 movie "Eight Crazy Nights" and this year’s sex and drug comedy "50 First Dates."...
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Channel One News has a long history of advertising junk food to students and their newest ad campaign was unveiled several weeks ago. Kellogg’s Pop Tarts are now a major advertiser on Channel One’s in-school TV show. Last school year, Channel One heavily advertised Kellogg’s new product called SnakStix. Obligation’s Jim Metrock said, "Channel...
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From Jim Metrock: Ken McNatt just sent me and email telling me Channel One had posted the script of their Thursday show on their web site. I received the email at 10:40 PM CST tonight Wednesday, November 17. The script of the completed show is below. If you are wondering how a news organization...
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Well, they’re back on the bus. Those lovely bozos from Channel One are back on the road trying to keep the remaining schools they have from canceling their contracts. Relatively poor states like Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana have a disproportionate number of public schools that still rent TV equipment...
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Please visit the National Campaign Against Channel One for more information. The 2004-05 school year for Channel One News marks an aggressive and disturbing new trend toward what we will call "Total Commercialism." Channel One is pushing the envelope every way they can to get more and more revenue-generating commercial messages into the 12-13...
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Video from Channel One News 2/25/04 From Jim Metrock: Obligation has been asked to provide this video on the web site. Earlier this year, Channel One News shocked teachers and students with two extended reports about homosexual/ lesbian marriage. These February shows presented middle school students with images from seven gay weddings. One can...
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From Jim Metrock: On Friday, November 5, schoolchildren forced to watch Channel One News saw their second “special” news anchor for the week. Jeremy Sumpter co-hosted the entire Channel One broadcast for middle and high school students. Sumpter is a TV actor for a struggling CBS show called Clubhouse. (On Monday, UPN paid to have an actress from their...
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Primedia is the parent company of Channel One. Today they released their 2004 third quarter earnings report. Below is the part that relates to Channel One News: "Education Segment revenues were $13.2 million in the third quarter 2004, flat when compared to third quarter 2003. Advertising revenues, which are all from Channel One, were...
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