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.
Obligation can’t get Dr. Folkemer to answer our emails, so we put some words in his mouth. This is what we think this educator-turned-Kiddie Marketer would say. Dr. Folkemer is one of the few remaining executives at Alloy/Channel One News. He is certainly familiar with everything the company is advertising to teens and...
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As we have reported Alloy/Channel One News is heavily promoting a music group called Sick of Sarah. You may not be able to hear the lyrics in the YouTube video above, but you can follow along with the lyrics printed below. Alloy/Channel One News is in such bad financial shape they will...
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Here’s another Teen.com ad forced on students down to the fifth grade. Private is a TV show that doesn’t appear on TV. It is only seen online. That means anything goes. Private like Gossip Girl is taken from an Alloy Media and Marketing book. Should a public school be promoting this web-only programming? Did...
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Frame shot of Alloy/Channel One News ad for Teen.com. The ad features X-rated rapper Ludacris. From Jim Metrock, president of Obligation, Inc.: Click on the picture above and watch an actual commercial that ran in American classrooms. Students compelled to watch Channel One News are now getting a steady dose of ads urging...
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Everybody should be sick of Sarah. This is one of the bands that use class time to promote their music. What a sick joke on students and parents. This is the ugly reality of Alloy/Channel One News. Alloy/Channel One News is now advertising musical artists throughout each daily TV program. This is...
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Alloy/Channel One robs schoolchildren of precious school time. How can that be repaid? If Channel One News is being shown in a school, it is because there is a legal contract between the school or school district and Alloy Media and Marketing/Channel One. Channel One wrote the contract. They should know what...
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This is an ad taken from Alloy/Channel One’s youth website. Children see the first frame, "The next time you think school feels like a prison…" then they see the others follow. Who gave Alloy/Channel One News permission to advertise this type of content to young people?
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The above ad did not appear on Channel One. Channel One, however, is promoting the program. Why would Alloy/Channel One promote Gossip Girl to teens and preteens? Because Channel One is own and totally controlled by Alloy Media and Marketing. Alloy created Gossip Girl books and licensed the story to the CW Network....
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Ad from the Channel One News website. Channel One News continues to promote Cliff Notes to students. Now they are urging young people to download the Cliff Notes iPhone application. Everything advertised on the Channel One News TV show and on Channelone.com is implicitly endorsed by the schools that have a contract with Channel...
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Meet Adriana Diaz. If your child attends a school that still shows Alloy’s Channel One News, then he or she knows Adriana. She gets a lot of face time on the in-school TV show. She is one of the pretend reporters on the show and she is also a pitch person for advertisers on...
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