Months after Channel One urged children to see the premiere of the gross-out PG13 movie The Nutty Professor – The Klumps, the Channel One web site is still promoting the film. Channel One encouraged children to enter a contest to win Eddie Murphy prizes. The children had to write about a teacher and why they were crazy – or...
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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.
Channel One Continues to Promote Eddie Murphy’s Dirty Movie
Scantily Clad Actress Parades For Preteens and High Schoolers in Channel One Commercial
Channel One executives just can’t pass up the money that movie studios wave beneath their noses. On October 6, Channel One ran a commercial in middle schools around the country for a PG13 movie called “Pay It Forward.” To get the kids’ attention a partially-clothed Helen Hunt is prominently shown in the classroom commercial. Children see Helen...
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Halloween Comes A Day Early for Primedia
Channel One’s parent company is Primedia, Inc. Primedia is primarily a magazine publisher and it is 72% owned by Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts a leverage buyout firm. Yesterday, Primedia announced a merge with About.com. The resulting sell off of Primedia stock certainly must have spooked Primedia’s management lead by Tom Rogers. The stock dropped...
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Mock Election Documents Channel One’s Stunning Decline
Channel One set up a mock election ("OneVote") that doubled as an advertising vehicle for a new dot.com company called DigitalBackPack.com and for a massive self-promotion for Channel One itself. Channel One made a major effort to get schoolchildren in schools that still have Channel One to sign up and vote in the election...
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Contract With Schools Continues To Be Breached
Check out the length of Channel One’s show during September. They are still violating the contract they themselves wrote. 12 minutes is the maximum for a Channel One show. That is what schools signed up for. This wholesale violation of the contract may well make the contract null and void. It certainly makes it...
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PA Students Continue to Protest Channel One
Ken McNatt and other students in Oil City, Pennsylvania and other nearby cities are expanding their new organization, Students Against Commercialized Classrooms Organization (SACCO). As we reported earlier, Ken McKatt began SACCO to address Channel One’s presence in his high school. , “SACCO has already grown beyond my expectations. We have 23 total members....
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New Feature – Video Clips From Channel One
What exactly is Channel One trying to sell our students? Well, now you can see for yourself as you sit in front of your computer. You can now view specific Channel One commercials taken from actual tapes that came from America’s classrooms. It is often very difficult to get tapes of Channel One shows...
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Senator Brownback, What Are You Doing Working For Channel One?
NEWS RELEASE For Immediate Release: For More Information Contact: Friday, September 29, 2000 Gary Ruskin (202) 296-2787 Jim Metrock (205) 612-3376 Brownback Carries Water for Company That Promotes Violent Entertainment to Schoolchildren Conservative and progressive organizations and scholars today criticized Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) for his work as "chief Senate apologist" for Primedia’s Channel...
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MO Student Begins Web Site Opposing Channel One in His School
A high school junior in Oak Grove, MO has started a web site that offers information for those who oppose Channel One. Jonathan Harm’s school has Channel One and ZapMe! Channel One officials have always thought that students were mindless robots that love anything that is on TV, especially if it takes away from...
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An Email to Channel One’s President Jim Ritts
Dear Mr. Ritts: Please instruct your sales department and Dr. Folkemer to immediately refrain from advertising violent entertainment on your show. As you know, Channel One has systematically marketed violent entertainment to schoolchildren. (Sorry, got the tapes and, as you know, the FTC invited me to show them your company’s ads for violent entertainment....
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