Does your school still have Channel One News?
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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 Successfully Delivers Children To “Dawson’s Creek” And WB Network

October 14, 1998

  The ratings are in and Channel One has something to brag about to future potential advertisers. They teamed up with the WB Network to help sponsor a contest that would assure a big child audience for the sex-saturated series “Dawson’s Creek.” Channel One ran ads urging children to see the season premiere entitled “The Morning After”. According to Electronic...
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Dawson’s Creek

October 5, 1998
Dawson’s Creek

Channel One Pushes Sexually-Charged Show on Children Channel One and Dawson’s Creek What was Channel One thinking about when they ran seven ads, in September, for “Dawson’s Creek” to children as young as 11? Channel One even put the full authority of their “special relationship” with our kids behind a contest that encouraged children to watch the premiere episode (rated...
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Channel One Promotes the Sexually Charged “Dawson’s Creek” To Schoolchildren

October 5, 1998

“Channel One is spitting into the face of parents and children. On “Dawson’s Creek”, last spring, a 15-year-old character on the show had sex with his teacher. The content of the show is saturated with sex talk. This is the creation of the director of the vulgar and obscenely-violent ‘Scream’ movies,” said Jim Metrock,...
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Joke’s On Us – Channel One’s Welcomes Back Web Advertising, Message Boards and Chat Room

September 25, 1998

It didn’t last long. It couldn’t. Channel One’s mission is to get the attention of kids, so they can then sell it for big bucks, and they need to have message boards and chat rooms on their web site or kids won’t be attracted. Channel One’s education VP, Paul Folkemer, expressed outrage to the Shelby County board of education...
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Jefferson County’s Answer to Channel One Problem: Breach the Contract

September 25, 1998

Birmingham, AL – Jefferson County is allowing Channel One back into their classrooms but in doing so is violating their contract with the controversial company. Jim Metrock is president of Obligation, Inc., a child-advocacy group.that opposes Channel One’s controversial program in public school classrooms. He said, "Dr. Bruce Wright is not...
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Channel One Hires Lobbyist Group To Save Alabama Cash Flow

September 25, 1998

Paul Folkemer, Channel One’s newly-hired education VP, was nowhere to be seen at the Alabama Board of Education work session. The man that was so embarrassed that Shelby County, AL school board members knew more about his company than he did, had other pressing engagements than talking to the Alabama board of education. Channel One was one of the main...
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Shelby County Terminates Channel One Contract After Eight Years

September 17, 1998

It wasn’t close. Every high school principal and assistant principal signed on to a resolution urging the removal of Channel One from their schools. The Shelby County Reporter editorially called for the unplugging of this advertising ploy. Superintendent Evan Major recommended the immediate termination of Channel One. The board voted 3-1 to pull the...
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Blount County (AL) Public Schools To End Channel One

September 16, 1998

Superintendent Donnie Breaseale called Obligation, Inc. and said he inherited the Channel One contract and that several schools have already discontinued showing the program. When he was a principal, Mr. Breaseale did not allow Channel One into his school. Now as superintendent, he is overseeing the structured removal of Channel One from the system. “Our state is enriched by the...
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Channel One Brings Back Message Boards To Controversial Web Site

September 11, 1998

Channel One had removed several features from their controversial web site after a Channel One executive was lectured by the Shelby County board of education on September 1 (see below). They removed the "Entertainment" and "Life" sections that often contained age inappropriate material for children, especially pre-teens (such as reviews of R-rated movies and...
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PRIMEDIA

September 11, 1998

[From Obligation – Channel One is targeting our children again. This time they are going to have principals hand out samples of advertisers’ products during school time. Obligation has not heard of "Channel One Cover Concepts Marketing Services" but it appears to have the same purpose as Channel One News. This outrageous abuse of...
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