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.
Jim Ritts is the beleaguered president of Channel One News. His company is both up for sale and looking for additional investors if no purchaser can be found. Ritts knows it is "gut-check" time for Channel One and he is doing some bold (read: "stupid") things to bring money into his company. Ritts has...
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From: *******@aol.com Date: October 31, 2003 12:18:58 PM CST To: ****@aol.com Cc: jimmetrock@mindspring.com Subject: Channel One Hello, I just wanted to let you know – Thanks to your support and all the information from Jim Metrock and Obligation Inc. web site, I was able to have Channel One thrown out of our school district...
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Channel One’s parent company, PRIMEDIA, is in terrible shape. The company announced their third quarter results today and it was dismal. Last year’s third quarter showed a loss of one cent per share. This year, they lost 17 cents per share. This greatly exceeded what the experts had predicted. PRIMEDIA is one lousy company. It has never made...
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Every week, Channel One News plays a joke on the school boards that signed up for their service. They run a feature called The Play of the Week. This is a promotional effort by Channel One to get more students to watch their program. Virtually every day near the beginning of the show, Channel...
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October 28, 2003 Candidates’ concerns voiced at forum By Matt Merritt/Austin Daily Herald The public got down to the details with the 10 Austin School Board candidates Monday night at the Mower County Senior Center. Questions at the forum, sponsored by the Austin branch of the American Association of University Women, included such...
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Doritos ads are back on Channel One News. Channel One News is working overtime to push this snack product on kids. Money is flowing into Channel One News from the people at Frito-Lay, makers of Doritos and a division of PepsiCo. Marketing snacks is a major part of Channel...
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From Jim Metrock: Channel One News has to find new revenue sources. So they are selling magazines. And books, CDs, and DVDs. As we reported, Channel One is now in the business of marketing these products to young people that visit their web site. Their “Shop” section is a bold move for this...
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By BRANDY RICHMOND Banner-Graphic Staff Writer CLOVERDALE — Rather than paring down the valedictory pool, weighted grades may actually beef up the competition, the Cloverdale School Board learned at its June meeting. Cloverdale High School Principal Patrick Bauer addressed board president Scott Barrier and members Joetta Milligan, Barbara Petro, John Whitaker and James Sharp regarding weighted grades for...
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http://www.pleasanthill.k12.or.us/Schools/High/BillieBulletin/Issue_5_2003(October)/5_2003_5.htm Students mixed on loss of Channel One by Stephanie Lowell – Reporter When everybody came back to school in the fall, it seemed like something was missing; and it was. Channel One, a news program that Pleasant Hill has shown directly after Guide since 1991 has been relegated to Social Studies and...
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Email from Ken McNatt: "This Channel One removal comes from the Russellville School District in Russellville, Arkansas. The day, August 26th, 2003. This is a PDF file, so I will give you the excerpt from the file: From: http://rsdweb.k12.ar.us/pdf/Minutes/August%2026,%202003.pdf ‘IN THE MATTER OF Removal of Channel One at Russellville High School The Board...
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