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.
Channel One vowed that no guest hosts would ever, EVER, plug a product on the air. They even put it in writing. Channel One told teachers and school boards that they understood the special nature of the captive audience they were serving. Yet guest hosts are now a major advertising component of the controversial Channel One...
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From Jim Metrock: On Sunday, September 30, the WB Network and Channel One produced and aired an hour special on the terrorist attack. (7 p.m.CDT WB Network) It was billed as an hour where young people could express themselves about the changed world they now live in. Indeed, the show was named "The Day It All Changed." The...
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October 19, 2001 – Channel One’s Recap of Terror… Put to Music Parents Have No Control Over What Images Channel One News Forces on Students Same Content for Ten-Year-Olds as for High School Seniors On September 18, one week after the terrible...
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Above, children see the first Trade Tower after the plane hit. From Jim Metrock: On September 18, one week after the terrible attack on our country, Channel One prepared a “recap” of the week of terror. Morgan Wandell and Jim Morris are the young men...
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Channel One is basically on life support. It is only able to pay its bills and make its payroll because of one unlike benefactor – the U.S. Government. If our Federal Government stopped supporting Channel One, Channel One would be finished. That is the incredible situation in which Channel One finds itself at the end of...
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Polaroid thought Channel One was the perfect vehicle to advertise their I-Zone cameras and Sticky Film. They were a huge advertiser on Channel One last year. What Polaroid’s marketing people didn’t understand is that a large number of classrooms with Channel One TV sets don’t watch Channel One News. Channel One’s claim of an...
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A New York Post article yesterday speculated that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, majority owners of Channel One’s parent company Primedia, may take Primedia private and auction off pieces of the company. Primedia (PRM) was once at $34 a share and is now struggling to remain above $2. Primedia has over $2 billion of debt and...
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It happens a lot. Today was just the latest violation. Channel One’s "News Standards" were published several years ago in an effort to ease growing concerns about the sloppy quality of their TV show. The new crew at Channel One now probably doesn’t even know about the policies the company created. Channel One vowed never...
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A sultry singer is dressed in a skimpy two-piece outfit with see-through mesh on her legs and midriff. She struts down a runway surrounded by screaming fans. She falls on her knees and provocatively sings to the captive audience of schoolchildren forced to be shown Channel One. With moves that would challenge any belly...
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In June, Channel One lost one of its best salesmen – Paul Folkemer. In 1998, Folkemer walked away from Benjamin Franklin Middle School where he was the principal to take a job with Channel One. Overnight, Folkemer went from worrying about the carpool line to a cushy job as "Vice President of Education" with...
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