May 26, 2000 To: Paul Folkemer, Jim Ritts, Jeff Ballabon, Tom Rogers, and Roger Wolfson Today there is yet another incident of violence in our public schools (West Palm Beach). I have called on you before to end the promotion of violent entertainment to America’s schoolchildren and I have heard absolutely nothing. Do you think marketing violence is a...
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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.
West Palm Beach School Shooting
Teacher Email Dropped By Channel One
Channel One announced they have dropped their year long effort to get teachers to sign up for free Channel One email. Obligation has monitored the Channel One “Teach 1” forums which were a side-by-side feature with their email. Hardly any teacher used the forum section and it is not surprising that few used the email feature. It appears that...
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Center for Media Literacy
In a continuing effort to look reputable, Channel One has found another organization that will “partner” with them. This time it’s a media literacy group in California called the Center for Media Literacy. It is not known if this group was paid to enter this relationship. Last year a so-called media literacy expert named Renee Hobbs entered into a contract...
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National Curriculum?
“All Who Want A National Curriculum For Schools Please Raise Your Hand.” Channel One Executive, Roger Wolfson, Praises Channel One For Being “…Closest Thing to a National Curriculum” Channel One executive, Roger Wolfson, told Progressive Magazine that “In spite of the bad stuff you hear from Nader and the opponents it (Channel One News) really is the closest thing...
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Advertisers Losing Interest In Channel One?
Primedia’s president Tom Rogers recently mentioned that Channel One is losing advertiser support. Evidently three big advertisers have seriously lowered their spending on this controversial TV show or they might have totally withdrawn from the show. Obligation urges all companies that are advertising on Channel One and channelone.com to remove their financial support. There are other more respectable ways to get...
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Vestavia Hills High School Dumps Channel One After Nine Years
Channel One Continues to Implode in Alabama The Birmingham News reported today that Vestavia Hills High School has ended their contract with Channel One. A poll taken by the school librarian showed that an overwhelming majority of teachers, who were under contract to show the program, were in fact not showing it to students. 91% of teachers said they...
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C1N and AOL Team Up to Dump Toxic Waste on Teens
Channel One is a sponsor and content provider for AOL’s Teen web site. On this site, children are exposed to age-inappropriate content such as movie reviews by E! Entertainment. Music acts that are known for their sexually-explicit lyrics are commonly featured on this site. Chat rooms and message boards are here for children to use. Channel One’s presence on...
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Jeff Ballabon Quote
Channel One’s Jeff Ballabon quoted in the Harrisburg, PA Patriot-News, referring to the efforts of scholars and conservative and liberal groups opposing Channel One: “It’s hard to express how unconcerned we are that this is going to impact us negatively.”
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NYU Honors Obligation and Commercial Alert
NYU Honors Obligation and Commercial Alert for Work Against Commercialism in Schools Arianna Huffington presented Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert and Pat Ellis and Jim Metrock of Obligation with an award to honor their efforts against companies like ChannelOne and ZapMe!. Ralph Nader was also honored and he also spoke against Channel One’s commercial exploitation of schoolchildren.
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Alabama Pediatricians Pass Resolution Opposing Commercials in Classroom
No big surprise here – pediatricians don’t like anyone forcing children to watch commercials for candy bars, soft drinks and violent movies. Alabama pediatricians deserve a lot of credit for standing up for the poorest children in Alabama who are injured the most by Channel One’s advertising assault. Here is part of the resolution: “Be it Resolved, The...
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