Houghton Mifflin/Channel One News
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.
Tom Hanson
Channel One News had many on-air personalities who acted goofy. Tom Hanson is shown here mugging for the camera. At the time, he was trying to look “younger” for his captive audience of middle school students. Many Channel One “reporters” thought that acting immature – making silly faces – would fool students into thinking...
Read More »
Where did Channel One News people go?
It’s been a tough road for many who hoped to leap from Channel One to legitimate journalism.
Read More »
Three villains
Channel One News has been gone since 2018. However, there is concern that some new youth marketing company will try to bring back the company or parts of it. That is why Obligation will release a video series documenting the abundant problems with Channel One. Before the videos start in August, let’s reintroduce a...
Read More »
Channel One News converted learning time into marketing time. New video series will explain how it ended.
Channel One News was a classroom marketing company. It grew at a phenomenal rate in the mid-90s until it ran into its toughest opposition: Obligation, Inc. My name is Jim Metrock. I’m president of Obligation. I am one of the reasons Channel One News exited classrooms. I am one of the reasons millions of...
Read More »
Let’s get NexxGen News up to 10 likes.
Edmodo’s partner in school advertising “crime” is NexxGen News. NexxGen News appears to be a cheat clone of the discredited Channel One News program. It’s hard to see schools falling for this mess. It took over a month for NexxGen to generate 3 “likes” on Twitter.
Read More »
Keith Kocinski lands on his feet… sorta.
From Jim Metrock: I warned him, but he didn’t listen. He stayed too long at Channel One, and as a result his career has taken a… disappointing turn. For years Keith Kocinski pretended to be a reporter on Channel One News. Today he is a real game show host. He is a host of a...
Read More »
Who’s going to pick up this trash?
From Jim Metrock: Channel One has declared they are going out of business, that’s all well and good, but… there’s some yucky, unfinished business that must be talked about. The TV sets. The satellite dishes. The headend units. The old VCRs that might still be in schools. Schools can’t just dump this equipment in...
Read More »
Brutal ad on Channel One News: If You Wear Glasses, You’re Ugly. (Sept 2003)
These pictures are from the Acuvue2 commercials that are in heavy rotation on Channel One News in middle and high schools during September 2003. Mo Money! You can almost picture Jim “Sugar Daddy” Ritts stuffing the Johnson&Johnson cash in his pockets. Is he the least bit concerned that it is cruel for Channel One to advertise contact lens to schoolchildren?...
Read More »
Magazine Premium created by Themes by bavotasan.com.
