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: Houghton Mifflin’s controversial Channel One News is not hiring. Summer is a bad time for this dinosaur of a youth marketing firm. The summer months are a perfect time for schools to end their contract with Channel One. When a TV show is losing their audience, why hire more people?
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From Jim Metrock: Channel One’s on-air personality Maggie Rulli is leaving. Her last day was Friday, May 27. Ms. Rulli stayed too long at the controversial, in-school TV show. Her role was to be the pretty face to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s ugly commercial exploitation of school kids via their Channel One News subsidiary. Sadly she stayed with this...
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From Jim Metrock: Schools continue to show Channel One before school starts. Schools that are serious about academics will not allow Channel One News to interfere with their school day. The remaining advertisers on Channel One have to know that the TV show doesn’t have the audience it once had. Students at...
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Note: This post was originally published July 2, 2001. From Jim Metrock – Channel One can’t have it both ways. They run some anti-drug public service announcements and urge schools not to end their contract because these PSAs are so important to children, yet Channel One continues to advertise and promote movies that send...
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https://obligation.org/pdf/c1brochurefinal032808.pdf
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This story from 1997 is the first time we taped a Channel One News story that sent a wrong drug message to students. How demoralizing is it to be in middle school and hear this “reporter” tell you that 1/2 of all parents...
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March 10, 2016 Note: Channel One News has a long history of advertising movies and TV shows that normalize and even glamorize teen drinking and teen drug use. Search for “drugs” and “teen drinking” on this site and you will be nauseated by what Channel One and its advertisers put in front of American teens...
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From Jim Metrock: I check in on Channel One News only occasionally now. The company is a shell of its former self. Fewer and fewer students see Channel One’s advertising, news, and fluffy filler content. American schools are so much better with the fall of Channel One News. Below is a February 25th Facebook post...
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From Jim Metrock: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Channel One wants schoolchildren, down to eight, to tackle the important issue of dirty dancing. HMH’s Channel One News maintains one website for all its student audiences, ranging from high school seniors to third grade students. Channel One recently ask students, “Do you think schools should cancel dances because...
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From Jim Metrock: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s miserable unit Channel One Network is helpless when schools trash their TV show. Consider Gulfport High School’s refusal to show Channel One News according to the “contract” they have with the company. On a regular day the school allows five minutes for school announcements and any remaining time...
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