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.

Hebron High loves Channel One News

March 17, 2012
Hebron High loves Channel One News

    From Jim Metrock: The big thing here is not that some students at Hebron High School did this video for Channel One’s benefit. The important thing is this video means Hebron H.S. is still showing Channel One and its commercials during its school day.  (This after 1/3 of Channel One schools have...
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School time will be used to promote The Hunger Games movie. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?

March 15, 2012
School time will be used to promote The Hunger Games movie. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?

    See for yourself:  
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Our email to CEO Kent Haehl and Channel One’s “child advocate” Dr. Paul Folkemer

March 12, 2012
Our email to CEO Kent Haehl and Channel One’s “child advocate” Dr. Paul Folkemer

                                        Jim Metrock jimmetrock@obligation.org via gmail.com  Mar 9 to pfolkemer, khaehl   Both of you well know the content of gurl.com. It makes no sense for two men who have children and grandchildren to be exposing...
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Warning: Explicit content Channel One’s idea of good advice for girls.

March 9, 2012
Warning: Explicit content  Channel One’s idea of good advice for girls.

From Jim Metrock: gURL.com is an extremely controversial website that contains explicit sexual content aimed at girls. This site’s target audience is not young women, but, as it’s name implies, girls – teen girls, tween girls, and preteen girls. gURL is owned by Alloy Media and Marketing as is Channel One News. Channel One...
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Channel One’s “journalists” on parade

March 8, 2012
Channel One’s “journalists” on parade

On February 15, 2012 Channel One News used their crack team of “journalists” to show off school tee shirts. This one 30-second bit of nonsense cost students and taxpayers dearly. Channel One says they have “nearly 5.5 million” students. (They once claimed a captive audience of 8.1 million.) If half of their claimed audience...
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Channel One News continues to send kids to highly charged sexual website.

March 6, 2012
Channel One News continues to send kids to highly charged sexual website.

     
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Complete, unedited Channel One News for December 5, 1996

March 4, 2012
Complete, unedited Channel One News for December 5, 1996

 
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A principal who thought he worked for Channel One instead of his students. (1990)

March 1, 2012
A principal who thought he worked for Channel One instead of his students. (1990)

   From Jim Metrock: This is a short clip from the video Schools for Sale. I have always been fascinated with this video from Fargo, ND since 1997 when I first saw it.  The principal Ed Raymond was very willing to suspend students for THREE DAYS if they did not go to the classroom...
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A classic video: Schools for Sale (1995)

February 27, 2012
A classic video: Schools for Sale (1995)

  In 1995 the Walt Whitman Center in association with Pacific Street Films produced this video to help parents and educators remove Channel One News from their schools. They hired the comedian Lewis Black to play the role of Jerry Adman. The film has been broken into two parts. Part ONE  of Schools for...
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OMG! Channel One News is selling kids Blackberry cell phones.

February 20, 2012
OMG! Channel One News is selling kids Blackberry cell phones.


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