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.
Channel One News article praises offensive play and gives children link to play’s website. Here’s a typical song from The Book of Mormon. Be WARNED. This may be considered funny stuff to Channel One’s staff but this is very offensive content. Obligation normally “*&%#s” out most letters of offensive words when...
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December 16, 2011: National College sent information refuting the Kentucky Attorney General’s claims. Please read: 2011 O C1 National College letter Dec 7 2011 Controversial National College fits perfectly with extremely controversial Channel One News. From Jim Metrock: Anyone who has watched as much Channel One News as I have, certainly appreciates how little...
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Today Keystone Enterprise Services (Salt Lake City, UT) announced they would retain their contract to maintain Channel One’s TV equipment in schools. In their press release Keystone has given the public a little more information about the very secretive Channel One company. The news isn’t good for the kiddie marketers at Channel One. Keystone...
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Superintendent Donnie Witten allows movie commercials to rob his students of academic time. For more information: The Wastin’ Time and Tax Dollars Award Names of schools in the running for Obligation’s Wastin’ Time and Tax Dollars Award: Lardner Middle School, Niles, MI Avon Middle School North, Avon, Indiana Clark Middle School, Laredo, TX Powdersville Middle...
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How many babysitting jobs would it take to buy a $250 – $449 cell phone?
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The amount of school time and tax money lost promoting this movie is a tragedy. Channel One has removed all commercials shown on the classroom TV show Channel One News from its web rebroadcast. This prevents parents from seeing what is being advertised to their students. So the Twilight commercials that ran in middle...
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Click to visit the CCFC There’s no better advocate for children than the CCFC, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. They really detest Channel One’s presence in schools. Here are a few of their articles about these commercial exploiters. The CCFC does so much more to benefit the lives...
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Click for video. Originally posted August 21, 2010. The video is still factually correct except the number of schools under contract to Channel One and the number of students in Channel One’s audience are significantly less now. https://obligation.org/2011-09-08-shock-channel-one-news-loses-500000-students-within-three-months Because Channel One has been thrown out of so many secondary schools over the past eight...
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Many secondary schools under contract to show Channel One News to their students don’t honor the contract. For years Obligation has documented numerous ways schools violate the viewing terms of Channel One’s contract. [ex. MS, AL and TX, GA and TX, FL, NE, WY, IA and the notorious Pizitz Letters – Channel One admits their viewing...
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Did school administrators seek input from parents? From Jim Metrock: So, this fall Ashland Elementary School (Dumfries, VA) has agreed to make its 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders part of an experiment with the Channel One youth marketing firm. [A short video about Channel One. A brochure: 10 reasons to be glad you...
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