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.
Youth Middle School in Loganville, GA shows Channel One News before school starts – way before. The school administrators in the Walton County School District don’t want Channel One’s commercial-saturated TV show messing up their school day. Who can blame them?
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Download and print out. It is still timely. https://obligation.org/pdf/c1brochurefinal032808.pdf
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EF Tours thought they would advertise their European vacation packages to Channel One’s captive audience.
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Channel One treats principals like stooges. Expects school administrators to do their bidding. From Jim Metrock: There is no school vendor that acts like Channel One. Can you imagine a building contractor in competition for a major school construction job, contacting principals asking them to lobby the school board in the company’s favor?...
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This information is nearly a year old (July 2011). If the last decade is a guide, all these state numbers should be lower as of today. https://obligation.org/2011-09-08-shock-channel-one-news-loses-500000-students-within-three-months https://obligation.org/2010-07-13-channel-one-news-has-lost-11-schools-each-week-for-the-last-364-weeks Texas Percent of Channel One’s total 10.60% Schools under contract 828 Ohio 7.68% 600 Pennsylvania 6.02% 470 Tennessee 5.34% 417 Illinois 4.81% 376...
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Channel One advertisers hate New Hope Middle School. Do you see why?
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Channel One Wins Five!! Telly Awards From Jim Metrock: When Channel One News does something right, I have to congratulate them. Boy, did they knock it out of the park by winning five Telly Awards this week. Way to go, Kent. Magnificent, Angela. Congrats, Paul. You might not have heard of the Telly Awards (“honoring...
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From Jim Metrock: Channel One News says they will not advertise high sugar/caffeine drinks. That’s kinda true and sort of a lie. So typical of this youth marketing firm. Check out these articles about Channel One’s sly way of giving Red Bull a lot of screen time in high schools and middle schools....
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Channel One News has routinely advertised oddball websites on its secondary school TV show. Parents of course have no idea or control over what this youth marketing company advertises to their children. Here students are told about an online travel agency called Byebyenow.com. Why tell sixth graders about a travel agency? Are they suppose...
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