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: I have written before about the laziness of Channel One reporters: Dec. 18, 2003 – The Lazy News Network, Apr. 8, 2007 – Laziest Journalist in America?, May 5, 2008 – The Lazy News Channel . How lazy are the reporters at Channel One News? This company brags about being young...
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From Jim Metrock: There has to be a lot of crying going on at Channel One if the figure I saw for their annual revenue is anywhere near correct. There isn’t much known about Channel One’s finances since 2007 when the company was bought by Alloy Media and Marketing. Before that year Channel...
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From Jim Metrock: I am reposting this 2005 article to salute all those parents, teachers, school administrators, and school board members who helped to end Channel One’s commercial assault on young people. A decade ago, Channel One paid its CEO a total of $1.7 million for the fiscal year 2004. They could do...
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From Jim Metrock: I am trying to figure out who is still employed at Channel One. I made a request of Channel One’s CEO CJ Kettler and she never responded. She is what you would call a “non-responsive” chief executive officer. Channel One Director of Communications Ms. Alex Honeysett wrote me back only...
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From Jim Metrock: I came across a website that listed these people as employees of Channel One. It is odd because it listed relatively new employees like Alex Honeysett and CJ Kettler, but also people like Kathy Goodman who was let go a few years ago and Kent Haehl now selling ads for...
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From Jim Metrock: Somebody on the Internet wants your child’s personal information. Channel One News and its current CEO Ms. CJ Kettler not only want your child to give up this information, they are URGING your child to do so. Ms. Kettler has approved a series of commercials for Clearasil. Clearasil wants...
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What Mr. Haehl might say if he ever gave an interview. From Jim Metrock: The Purge continues.Channel One’s long time sales manager, president, CEO, and most recently Chief Revenue Officer Kent Haehl is no longer employed by the company. CCME Seattle names Kent Haehl Market President By cmarcucci on Jan, 29 2014 ...
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From Jim Metrock: I took off a month to consider if I should end Obligation’s fight against Channel One. I have been researching and reporting on Channel One, and raising awareness of Channel One’s presence in American classrooms since 1996. I had a sense that Channel One’s current management wanted their classroom TV...
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From Jim Metrock: What you are about to read is taken directly from Channel One’s website (http://cdn.channelone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Channel-One-Network-Advertising-Policies-and-Guidelines2.pdf) Obligation did not change a word. The kiddie marketers at Channel One News wanted to boast to educators and parents that they did indeed have limits to what they would advertise to their captive audience...
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From Jim Metrock: Bishop Fenwick High School in Franklin, Ohio shows Channel One News on its classroom TV sets. (I can hear Channel One’s advertisers and CEO C.J. Kettler shouting with joy, “There IS a school that actually watches Channel One News!”) Every day right before school ends, students are read announcements, bow their...
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