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.
Above: Front page of the official website of Channel One News. Can you tell what these kiddie marketers think is the big news story of the day? It’s the midnight release!! Ads for Hunger Games DVDs and Blu-ray discs have been plastered over the entire website all week. Below: Guess who welcomed students...
Read More »
There is very little hard news on Channel One News. The company is a kiddie marketing company and selling stuff to a captive audience of schoolchildren is what Channel One is all about. This Play of the Week does two things. First, it wastes time. This is filler. Showing this is cheaper than actually...
Read More »
Channel One News prevents parents from seeing the commercials they send to American classrooms. They remove commercials from their playback for parents on Channelone.com. Obligation provides parents and the public with the full Channel One shows that students were forced to watch while they sit at their desks.
Read More »
At the time Seventeen magazine was a sister company to Channel One News. Even though Seventeen contained content that was age-inappropriate for preteens, Channel One heavily advertised it in American middle schools.
Read More »
It’s almost like Channel One News executives Kent Haehl and Paul Folkemer want educators to hate their company. With Channel One coming under renewed criticism for their advertising assault on schoolchildren, one would think the company would trim back their advertising. Instead the first day of Channel One’s 2012-13 broadcast year began with a...
Read More »
Channel One News often allows movie stars to be “guest hosts” to welcome students to the broadcast and plug their movie.
Read More »
August 13, 2012 From Jim Metrock: Channel One News promotes R-rated movies, they just don’t do it directly. Here’s an example: Channel One advertises on their in-classroom TV show their sister company Findtuition.com. Young people who signin to Findtuition.com agree to receive emails from the company. I did this in 2008 and started receiving...
Read More »
News stories on Channel One News are often paid for by advertisers. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/142411/armys-channel-one-effort-tells-soldiers-stories.html
Read More »
