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.

There is no Channel One Advisory Board.

August 4, 2013
There is no Channel One Advisory Board.

 There hasn’t been one for six years, even though Channel One said there was.     From Jim Metrock: Since April 2006, Channel One has told the public they had in place an all-teacher Advisory Board helping the company better serve American schools. The ten members were all outstanding teachers from around the country....
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C.J. Kettler doesn’t want Channel One News commercials to be seen by parents.

July 30, 2013
C.J. Kettler doesn’t want Channel One News commercials to be seen by parents.

      From Jim Metrock: Kiddie marketers can be downright mean. Boo to Ms. C. J. Kettler.  Ms. Kettler a well-traveled, self-described “media industry leader” is the current CEO of Channel One.  It now looks like she is also a bit of a bully.  This may come from the desperate position she finds...
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“Who are your sponsors?”

July 19, 2013
“Who are your sponsors?”

  From Jim Metrock: Who are the advertisers on Channel One News?  Parents want to know, educators and school administrators want to know.Taxpayers of course want to know what companies are using taxpayer-funded school time to sell to students. In short the public wants to know. The public has always wanted to know, but...
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It’s embarrassing to say you once worked at Channel One News.

July 18, 2013
It’s embarrassing to say you once worked at Channel One News.

From Jim Metrock:  Nobody can fault former Channel One anchor Julian Dujarric from removing any mention of having worked for the youth marketing company Channel One from his Facebook page.  I think once people leave Channel One News they begin to more fully understand Channel One’s commercial exploitation of schoolchildren and I think, or...
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C. J.’s Privacy Policy

July 17, 2013
C. J.’s Privacy Policy

  From Jim Metrock:  Channel One’s new Privacy Policy appears to be more controversial than it’s previous version. Privacy concerns will be a major problem for  Channel One and its fellow Alloy kiddie marketers. Ms. C.J. Kettler the new Channel One CEO may think she can continue to collect information on other people’s children,...
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C. J.’s Website Terms of Use

July 16, 2013
C. J.’s Website Terms of Use

      From Jim Metrock: When or if you try to read Channel One’s brand spankin’ new Website Terms of Use below, keep in mind who Channel One wrote the words for: teenagers, preteens, and elementary school-age children.  That’s right, young people and very young people. Websites like Channelone.com create such documents to...
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Correction: Kent Haehl

July 15, 2013
Correction: Kent Haehl

From Jim Metrock:   On June 15, 2013, in an article about Channel One’s new CEO Ms. C.J. Kettler’s less than stellar business background, I mentioned that  I thought Kent Haehl’s new position at the company – simply listed as “CRO” on Haehl’s Linkedin public profile – stood for Chief Risk Officer. That was...
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“Care to find out which brand of condoms your friends prefer?”

July 9, 2013
“Care to find out which brand of condoms your friends prefer?”

July 8, 2013 – Channelone.com “breaking news” article. From Jim Metrock: For months Channel One News would post AP news stories without attribution. They made other people’s content appear to be their own. It was dumb for them to do that because they knew they would caught. Above is an AP story on Channelone.com today...
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It’s time.

July 8, 2013
It’s time.


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Complete, uncensored Channel One News for March 8, 2013

July 5, 2013
Complete, uncensored Channel One News for March 8, 2013

   
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