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: 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...
Read More »
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...
Read More »
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...
Read More »
From Jim Metrock: Shelby Holliday wised up and left Channel One News for a job at Bloomberg TV. Former Channel One executive producer Jim Morris works at Bloomberg and probably had a hand in connecting with Ms. Holliday. Although Ms. Holliday helped commercially exploit millions of schoolchildren since 2010, and she should rightfully feel...
Read More »
From Jim Metrock: Channel One News has a long history of bad decision making. At one time Channel One believed it was a good idea to give sex advice to kids. A young woman named Peggy Li was hired by Channel One around 1997 and evidently they gave her total freedom to do whatever...
Read More »
Required reading for Houghton Mifflin’s CEO Linda Zecher and SVP CJ Kettler. http://adem.alabama.gov/programs/land/landforms/CRTInd.pdf From Jim Metrock: Channel One thought that they could quickly and painlessly remove millions of dollars of equipment disposal fees from their balance sheet (before they were acquired by Houghton Mifflin) by dumping the disposal costs...
Read More »
From Jim Metrock: This is the current Channel One contract with schools as of July 21, 2014: Network Participation Agreement General Terms This Network Participation Agreement (this “Agreement”) sets forth the terms and conditions pursuant to which the subject school (the “School”) is entitled to participate in the Educational Network (the “Network”)...
Read More »
From Jim Metrock: The lazy, crazy days of summer have taken their toll on Channel One News. The company has a section of its Channelone.com website called “Interact.” The section sounds more engaging than it really is. Most of the content consists of simple multiple-choice quizzes or slideshows. Below is a screen shot of Channel One’s...
Read More »
From Jim Metrock: During the summer months Channel One News doesn’t film any newscasts. Why don’t they do their news program on their website for young people who look to Channel One News to keep them informed about the world? Doesn’t Channel One News seek to “encourage students to...
Read More »
A peek behind the curtain reveals Channel One News is shooting blanks. Subscription curriculum product is DOA. Few will pay for this amateurish effort.
Read More »
