This video clip is from the introduction to the January 31 show. It is similar to every other day. What you will see when you click on the link to the QuickTime movie is what children in Channel One schools saw at the very beginning of Channel One News. Imagine you are a student...
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Does your school still have Channel One News?
Learn how to unplug
Houghton Mifflin/Channel One News
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.
Smell Tax Money Burning – One Way C1 Wastes School Time
NBA AND CHANNEL ONE NETWORK ENTER MULTI-YEAR PROGRAMMING AGREEMENT
NBA Becomes First Pro Sports League to Ink Deal With Teen Network Channel One New York, March 27, 2001 – The National Basketball Association (NBA) and Channel One Network, a Primedia company (NYSE: PRM) and the number one source of news for America’s teens, have entered a multi-year agreement that will bring NBA players...
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Horrific Bat Mitzvah Shooting Shown On Channel One – “Repugant Decision Making At Channel One News”
One reason Channel One has been unsuccessful is it has always been insensitive to the special nature of its unique audience. Children as young as ten are in Channel One’s captive audience, yet Channel One delivers the same editorial content to middle school children as they do high school students. On January 22, Channel...
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Running On Empty – Primedia Seeks To Sell Channel One – Partnership Possible
The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Primedia, Channel One’s partner company, has hired the investment banking firm of Allen & Co. to find a buyer or partner for Channel One. (WSJ 2/21/02, p.B6) Microsoft and McGraw-Hill have talked about partnering with Channel One but failed to reach an agreement. Obligation’s Jim Metrock said, “Channel One...
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Ads Go Overboard – Channel One Jeopardizes Contracts With Schools
Much to the chagrin of serious educators, Channel One has spent much of its show this month covering the Olympics. Whenever a daily show would be featuring a report from Salt Lake City, Channel One would begin the show with this graphic: This would alert students to be watching for what Derrick Shore would...
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Channel One Flirts With R-Rating – “Just This Side Of An R-Rating”
For years, Channel One reviewed R-rated movies for children on their web site. They would encourage children to write their own reviews of violent and raunchy movies like “How To Be A Player” and “Kiss The Girls.” That ended because of pressure from Obligation, but now their is an alarming new trend on the in-school Channel One News....
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Ken McNatt
Ken McNatt is a Pennsylvania high school student who is opposed to Channel One. He started a student organization opposing Channel One in his school. Last year, when Ken heard that a school in Woodward, OK was thinking about getting Channel One, he tried to warn them. This is his follow up letter to...
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Channel One Sends Wrong Message About Ecstasy
From Jim Metrock: I have been watching Channel One since 1996. There has not been a show that has not made me very angry. As a conservative, as a parent, as a taxpayer – on many levels, this TV show is repugnant. The messages that Channel One sends our children about drugs really upset me. Channel One...
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Channel One Rains Down More Violent Entertainment On Children
This is from an article Obligation wrote for a Midwest newspaper. “A movie of such rank stupidity and appalling taste that it would seem impermeable to analysis, much less critique.” OREGONIAN “Loud, violent, mindless” DALLAS MORNING NEWS These are a few of the more charitable reviews for “Rollerball” an ultra-violent and profanity-filled movie that premiered on...
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Rock The (School) House
Elektra Records needed more exposure for the fairly unknown group called Dakota Moon. Elektra had sunk a lot of money into this group that combines soul and rock. Their second CD "Looking For a Place To Land" had to do well and teens and preteens could be just the people to help make the...
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