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.
From Jim Metrock: Ms. Monica Burns quit classroom teaching and is now a saleswoman. She is writing articles for Channel One’s website. Ms. Burns is praising Channel One and plugging the controversial Common Core national standards whenever she can. It makes sense that she is gushing about how wonderful Channel One is. After all,...
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From Jim Metrock: On September 29, 2014, and on several other dates, Channel One News ran a commercial for their parent company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. HMH publishes books aimed at the youth market. This ad is for a book called How to Catch a Bogle. The commercial is cheaply made. It must have...
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Should schools be responsible for introducing news to children? http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2014/09/16/39365/should-schools-be-responsible-for-introducing-news/#comments
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Houghton Mifflin’s Channel One News intentionally shows students executioner holding knife before beheading. Why show any pictures of this brutal act of terrorism? Is Houghton Mifflin CEO Linda Zecher pushing Channel One to get edgier with kids? From Jim Metrock: The good news is Channel One News did not use the word “beheading” in...
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From Jim Metrock: Kocinski, Hanson, Evans, and Rulli Sounds like a law firm. Unfortunately, these young people didn’t choose the law for a career. They chose instead to earn a paycheck by commercially exploiting schoolchildren. These are the remaining reporters for Houghton Mifflin’s Channel One News. Shelby Holliday as I reported before left Channel...
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HMH quarterly earnings conference call: Progress made coming out of bankruptcy. Channel One News not mentioned by HMH CEO Linda Zecher. Channel One and other acquisitions will have “no impact” on company in short term. Total cash paid out for three companies, including Channel One: $9.5 million. (Channel One was sold for $240...
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From Jim Metrock: It’s Friday, August 8, 2014 and Channel One News hasn’t shown up for class. It is not surprising. For the last several years, Channel One has started the program later at the beginning of school, and have ended their broadcast season earlier in an attempt to cut expenses. Many schools...
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From Jim Metrock: In the “good old days” Channel One News could make money by selling ads on its in-classroom TV show. Channel One loaned schools the TV sets to watch and could threaten to remove them if students didn’t watch the show and its commercials. That threat was the main reason schools allowed Channel One...
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From Jim Metrock: It’s tough to sell advertisers on a TV show with a rapidly disappearing audience. Channel One is still indicating Ms. Jordan is their VP of Sales, but the truth is she has left the company and is now employed by Townsquare Media. It is almost impossible to believe anything that Channel One says about...
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