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 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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When Houghton Mifflin’s Channel One News plays videos from students, there is a tremendous savings for the in-classroom TV show. Every minute of student-produced content is one minute less Channel One has to create. Do other schools want to see student-made videos about their upcoming prom? Absolutely not, but Channel...
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Is the stink of Channel One causing Houghton Mifflin people to panic? December 12, 2014: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (NASDAQ:HMHC) Insider Mary Johanna Cullinane unloaded 15,000 shares of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt stock on the open market in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $20.18, for...
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From Jim Metrock: (February 26, 2015) This week Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMHC) announced they lost $83.7 million in their fourth quarter. For the year they lost $111.5 million. Wall Street analysts predicted HMHC to post a quarterly loss of 28 cents per share, but the loss was 59 cents. Houghton Mifflin’s purchase of Channel One...
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From Jim Metrock: This movie contest is on Channel One’s website Channelone.com. This is the site that students in high school to elementary school go to find out more information after seeing the Channel One News show in their classrooms. Channel One rarely posts the MPAA ratings...
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Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood – 2012
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From the Houghton Mifflin/ Channel One News script: Last up, at least 25 people were killed in a plane crash yesterday, crashing into a bridge in Taiwan’s capital city, Taipei. A car’s dashboard camera captured the moment the plane came careening sideways out of the sky toward traffic; the plane’s wing clipping...
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From Jim Metrock: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt made a bad decision when they took over Channel One News.HMH evidently thought they could convert Channel One’s old videos and transcripts into a product that schools would not only desire, but would actually buy (with real money). It hasn’t happened. It won’t happen. Houghton Mifflin acquired a...
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