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.
More violence was dumped on America’s schoolchildren by Channel One in the closing days of the school year. Tim Burton’ s remake of “The Planet of the Apes” was advertised to young people in May. The classroom commercial has very scary scenes and ends with a sinister “ape” looks to the camera (to the children) and says,...
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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 the worse value messages to students, especially about drugs...
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Your guide to the Channel One gang: Jim Ritts is the latest president. Frederick Sawabini, formerly of MTV (Oh great!) is president of Sales & Marketing. Paul D. Folkemer, is Executive Vice President of Education Services. He is basically a PR man who has tried unsuccessfully for three years to create an educational facade...
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June 2001 – The United Methodist Church signs letter urging advertisers to remove their ads from the controversial Channel One TV show. From Jim Metrock: If you are a company trying to advertise to preteens and teenagers, you better not be caught advertising on Channel One. That is the message that a lot...
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As many know, Channel One has tried to co-opt the fledgling media literacy/media education movement. A handful of media literacy experts have tried to make Channel One respectable. A new organization is forming June 22 in Austin, Texas. The Alliance for a Media Literate America is taking the place of the Partnership for Media...
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News About Channel One – 2001 January – May Kick Hollywood Out of Your School – Kick Channel One Out – Enough is Enough The Mandatory Hollywood Curriculum: Channel One "Hollywood has a secret marketing tool. They call it Channel One News. If a school still has Channel One, that school is giving movie...
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Coca Cola has roared into the classroom. Their Minute Maid division is advertising its sugar water Coolers to students on Channel One. Here is a short report from the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch about Minute Maid Coolers: Headline: “A blast for kids” “If boxes of Hi-C Blast and Minute Maid Coolers look amazingly alike, it’s...
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From Jim Metrock: Regrettably, Primedia has not removed their pornography from their Internet company, About.com. Primedia, parent company to Channel One, merged with About.com at the end of February. Since then Channel One has run many commercials for About.com on their in-school TV show and run banner ads for About.com on channelone.com. I have...
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May 24, 2001 Dear Representative: This is a dirty letter. I do not apologize. The person who should apologize is Jack Abramoff of Greenberg and Traurig, the Washington lobbyist for the controversial in-school marketing company called Channel One. I am just telling you what his client is doing to our children. Channel One is...
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From Jim Metrock: I just sent a six page letter to U.S. Senators and Representatives. In this letter, I use graphic language to describe the sleazy and pro-drug entertainment that Channel One has advertised this school year. By clicking on the link you can read the letter, but I warn you about the content....
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