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.
May 24, 2011 – From Jim Metrock: Channel One News has tried many ways to confuse students. They have mixed advertising with news and feature stories, they have allowed advertisers to “sponsor” segments of the show and as we see below the allow advertisers to make their commercials look like a real news story....
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Click on image for article.
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From Jim Metrock: It’s May, 2011. Channel One News is dying. It’s a slow death, but it is fading away. Channel One News has been losing schools and revenue since 1997 (the year Obligation began this web site). As the 2010-11 school year ends, another harsh summer faces Channel One. It is in the...
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This ad appeared several times in Advertising Age. This is how Channel One News thinks about students. They are just a set of eyeballs that are to be sold to the highest bidders. Click on picture for full ad. https://obligation.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/c1undividedattention.pdf
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May 22, 2011From Jim Metrock: When corporations give to public schools there should be absolutely no strings attached. I hope you take the time to read this to better understand the problem with companies that use various means to plunder our local schools. Keynote Speech To Council Of Urban Boards Of Education July...
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Above: Channel One’s banner ad for Kotex products. (Screen shot May 8, 2011) Below: Channel One’s promises included in every signed contract with U.S. schools.
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From Jim Metrock: This was from February 2006. Channel One’s president Judy Harris was on a panel talking to governors. She wanted the governors to know that Channel One routinely combines news and feature stories with advertising. If companies that were trying to sell products to kids could benefit from Channel One’s unethical blurring...
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NOW I KNOW YOU’VE GOT SOME BIG GAMES COMING UP, SO DON’T FORGET TO BRING YOUR CAMERA. THAT MEANS YOU TOO GIRLS. WE WANT TO SEE WHAT YOU’VE GOT! AND SINCE WE’RE ALREADY ON THE FIELD LET’S SEE HOW MUCH YOU BASEBALL FANS KNOW. I’M GONNA SEND IT OVER THE FOLKS AT ABC...
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