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.
You can read this abstract or pay a fee to download the entire article, but the important point is the same one made by educational researchers since the creation of Channel One News: a school that has a contract with Channel One crosses a line that should not be crossed. http://aer.sagepub.com/content/45/2/343.abstract Abstract If the...
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From Jim Metrock: Make what you will of this. Most teachers, unfortunately, are not like this one, and don’t have the time to analyze the different biases of Channel One News. http://www.evolutionnews.org/
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Schoolchildren who are forced to watch Channel One News last school year were reminded over and over again that they should watch Fox’s prime time show Glee. The Parents Television Council is one of several organizations that are repulsed by the sexual content of this show. From the PTC website: The few...
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What a waste of taxpayer money. Do students need a pop quiz on Muddy Waters (great artist that he was) from Joe Bonamassa (over-rated artist that he is)? The answer is a resounding “No.” This is filler material that Channel One News uses to pad its program. Bonamassa has signed on with Channel One...
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Channel One News is back in the business of advertising junk drinks. Over the past month Channel One’s official website channelone.com has put an ad from the Coca-Cola company in its rotation of banner ads. Clicking on this banner takes kids directly to the Coke site shown below. There is no warning to children...
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This commercial ran in the 2009/10 school year. How can a student not watch this commercial? When you see this 30-second commercial, think of six million students watching it at various schools on the same day. That is a tremendous loss of school time. This nonsense goes on every school day, mainly in schools...
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It is breathtaking to see the collapse of the Channel One kiddie marketing empire. In 2003 Channel One claimed to have “over 8 million” schoolchildren under contract to their company. Seven years later, Channel One claims they have “nearly 6 million” in its captive audience. That means the figure is 5 million something....
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Boys and girls, it’s time for your Summer Update! From Jim Metrock: Channel One News often defends their company by saying they are the only source of news for many young people. If Channel One went away, then these poor, helpless children would be in the dark about current events. Obligation has had great...
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If Alloy Media and Marketing the current parent company of Channel One News left a bad taste in the mouths of parents and educators, wait until ZelnickMedia completes their planned purchase of Alloy this fall. ZelnickMedia is an investor group that owns Take-Two Interactive which in turn owns Rockstar Games which created the Grand...
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From Channel One’s Facebook page. Other children have posted their thanks to Channel One for wasting school time.
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