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.
Note to Channel One News: Some parents will not like your company exposing their child to disturbing images of terrorism. From Jim Metrock: Houghton Mifflin’s bad boy subsidiary Channel One has a history of showing inappropriate, often horrific, images to unsuspecting schoolchildren, some just out of elementary school. Here is a small sampling of...
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From Jim Metrock: Our good friend at the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) have been a great ally in the very successful battle to end Channel One’s commercial exploitation of public school children. Although this CCFC letter was directed to a school district in Ohio, it can be of help to any school...
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From Jim Metrock: Today, Channel One News took over 2 minutes of their in-classroom TV show to promote a horror, fantasy TV show called “Shadowhunters.” As you watch the clip think about all the taxpayer money that paid for every second of this promotion. Taxpayers pay for every second of public school time. Doesn’t...
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From Jim Metrock: To understand the reality of Houghton Mifflin’s controversial Channel One News in 2017, it is important to know… Channel One has lost roughly half of the schools they had in the 1990s. With a much smaller audience, Channel One’s advertising revenue is significantly lower. Because they have less money, Channel One...
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From Jim Metrock: Houghton Mifflin has a history of making bad decisions. The company has gone through several financial restructurings in recent years. The company’s last restructuring was indeed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2012. Houghton Mifflin used the bankruptcy laws to walk away from a cool $3.1 billion in debt. Any company that...
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From Jim Metrock: This agreement was copied word for word from Channelone.com. Like other Channel One-produced content, this agreement is full of punctuation mistakes and a few misspellings, but that isn’t the reason I’m posting it. I seriously doubt if Channel One, in their financial condition, has an attorney anymore. There might be a...
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Copied from Channelone.com on October 8, 2017: Terms of Use Effective Date: March 8, 2013. PLEASE READ THIS AGREEMENT CAREFULLY. IT SETS FORTH THE LEGALLY BINDING TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE. Introduction and Overview Welcome! You have arrived at an online service location (e.g., web site or mobile app) that...
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From Jim Metrock: Channel One News is a taped show. Even though there is less pressure with a canned program, mistakes pop up on the program. This may be because Channel One News is more about advertising than journalism. Students watching Channel One News see U.S. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn) discussing the Russia investigation. However,...
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Wakefield Middle School student performs a backward somersault to help promote a school vendor. What if she was injured doing this? Did the teacher or school obtain informed, written consent from parents of students before they performed and read their script and before their likenesses were nationally distributed? Does the Wake County Public School System...
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