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.
December 5, 1999 Channel One’s Mixed Grade By CONSTANCE L. HAYS It has been 10 years since Channel One burst into classrooms across the country with its made-for-adolescents mix of current-events programming and Madison Avenue commercials. With its school-board-friendly business model, it has built a captive audience of eight million schoolchildren, and...
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From Jim Metrock: I am happy for Scott Evans. After four years of being an on-air personality for Houghton Mifflin’s controversial Channel One show, he announced his departure on May 29. He has been one of the more likable people on Channel One. He’s even more likable now, now that he has...
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Hey, kids, “A married woman is a player’s dream.” Channel One News gives kids tips from a raunchy movie. Check out Channel One’s own words: https://obligation.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/c1-movie-review-How-to-be-a-player-1997.pdf Channel One Criticized for R-Rated Movie Reviews August 15, 1997 (Birmingham, AL) The companion website for the controversial in-school TV show Channel One has generated controversy of its own. The...
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Fresh Faces November 26, 1998 January 26, 1998 – Channel One Ceases Their Dangerous “Fresh Faces” Section Within the past two months, Channel One has listened to our our pleas and has ditched their dangerous “Fresh Faces” feature. This was another one of Channel One’s self-promotions that allowed children to put their pictures...
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Channel One’s Guide On How To Cheat On Book Reports February 13, 1998 We were tipped off to this by a teacher in Canada. (Our friends to the north are being plagued with a Channel One clone called YNN.) Channel One published this on their official web site. It attempts to be humorous and at the same...
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How To Be Stupid – The Lessons Of Channel One May 1, 1997 From Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Extra! May/June 1997 How to be Stupid The Lessons of Channel One By Mark Crispin Miller News, of course, is not the point of Channel One-any more than it’s the point of those commercial TV newscasts...
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Channel One Ad Promotes Most Violent Network Show March 20, 1997 Birmingham, AL – School children in several area middle schools (including all Jefferson and Shelby County system schools) were forced to watch a commercial during school for the most violent prime time series on network television. Obligation, a Birmingham-based child advocacy organization, says this is...
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Speech Given to All Alabama Superintendents of Education February 7, 1997 Prepared remarks by Jim Metrock, President, and Mrs. Pat Ellis, Director of Channel One Project, of Obligation, Inc.,to the Alabama Superintendents of Education meeting, at the Embassy Suites Ballroom, in Montgomery, on February 5, 1997. Mr. Metrock: Thank you, Dr. Richardson. Our message is...
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From Jim Metrock: It’s sad to see young people with a real chance to be legitimate journalists sign on with the kiddie marketing firm Channel One. Check out the background for this dynamic young woman and then try to understand her decision to join Houghton Mifflin’s Channel One News. http://www.channelone.com/reporter/arielle-hixson/ Note to Ms. Hixson:...
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