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 Jim Metrock: It would be hard to call one Channel One commercial the all-time worst. Who could forget the topless ad for Stay Clear? Or the ad for the ultraviolent movie Supernova that actually showed people being killed and gutted on the classroom TV screen? Oh, Channel One executives have made some moronic decisions in what they...
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Channel One won’t be cranking up their movie ads until September or October of this current school year. Right now, Channel One is running public service announcements because not all schools are in session yet. Here is the last Channel One movie ad from May of this year. It is a typical filthy movie that has made Channel...
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The Channel One Network has two vehicles to get commercial messages to children. The most important way is their in-school TV show called Channel One News. The second level of advertising comes on Channel One’s official web site, channelone.com. This web site is ONLY advertised on the TV show so it is an extension of the TV show. Each...
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Our August 12 article resulted in some emails. Students and teachers are happy to share their contempt for Channel One being in their school. Principals and teachers are simply pushing Channel One aside to make way for more academic time. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Beware of Channel One Sales representatives bearing “free” TVs. Consider the Trojans of...
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Not content with two minutes for commercials, Channel One started putting advertising messages into the “news” portion of Channel One News. The practice continues. Cingular Wireless not only runs regular thirty-second ads on Channel One, but they also sponsor the “Question of the Day” which is in itself an ad for Channel One’s web site channelone.com. Students who...
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From Jim Metrock: I know of no school system in the state of Alabama that honors the Channel One contract. I have never even heard of one that comes close. Channel One has never refuted this. They know their contract is being breached on a wholesale basis by school after school, not only in Alabama but across the...
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Well, it didn’t last long. In 2000, Channel One was shamed into stopping the practice of advertising PG-13 movies in middle schools. Channel One’s lobbyists went into overdrive getting the message out that Channel One was being sensitive to their middle school audience. A little background; Although to a classroom teacher, Channel One News looks like a seamless...
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Channel One has come off one of its worst years and now faces a very challenging 2002-2003 school year. National advertisers don’t see Channel One as a “sure bet” anymore in their efforts to get commercial messages to young people. Serious questions remain about the enforcement of Channel One’s contract. As Obligation has stated for years, we know...
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Since 1996, when Obligation began monitoring the show, Channel One has advertised high-sugar, high-fat, high-caffeine junk food and drink to schoolchildren. Channel One has run contests that dangle $2 million in front of children to get them to eat more M&Ms. Candy bars, cupcakes, Twinkies and assorted junk food have been regular advertisers on Channel One over the...
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You would too if you received the money they do from Channel One. There is an obesity crisis among our children yet these three are happy to do whatever they can to keep Pepsi and Twinkie commercials in classrooms. “Deal with it, kid,” they might tell an unfortunate student in a school with Channel One. Violence a...
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