Regrettable Moments on Channel One News

March 20, 2002

Images (Images Archive)

All photos from Channel One News unless indicated.

Above: Ten-year-olds through high school seniors watched in amazement in 2001 as a sultry singer in a skimpy two-piece outfit and see-through body netting grinds on Channel One News pushing Pepsi. This particular commercial ran many times. Just ONE commercial (30 seconds long) wasted 33,333 student hours. That assumes half of C1’s audience watches on any one day. If all 8 million students watched, the loss would be 66,666 hours. How long will America allow such waste to go on?

Below: Kystral Greene works for Channel One. She is on the right sitting next to Tamecka Dixon, in blue, who is there to promote the Women’s National Basketball Association. Green has never had a problem allowing co-hosts to push products on the air. On this show, March 13, Greene will also let Ms. Dixon do the Cingular commercial later in the show. Channel One News is operating totally outside the limits of their contracts with schools.

This graphic is on Channel One’s web site. Cingular is aggressively marketing its cell phones to children of any age. Channel One is providing a toll-free number to get personal information from children for their benefit and Cingular’s. When a young person clicked on "Question of the Day" , above the obvious Cingular ad, they were sent to Cingular’s home page where there was no question of the day. Channel One set this trick up to maximize the number of visitors from Channel One’s web site to Cingular’s. This earns Channel One more money even though many of the "hits" were unintentional. Channel One/Cingular Official Rules

Below: Good grief! It gets worse and worse at Channel One. Click for one of the more bizarre C1 commercials.

Above: When parents see Channel One News for the first time, they are often shocked by the immaturity of its production and the reporters on screen. This Channel One monster is from one of their intro clips that runs with the latest rap or rock music blaring in the background. Jim Metrock said, "Channel One uses these silly music videos to get the attention of students so they will watch the show and commercials. It is not surprising that high school students want little to do with this ‘pretend news show’."

Above: Channel One Hall of Shame (1997-98) Channel One loved to review R-rated movies for children of ALL ages. Obligation has a file filled with print outs of Channel One web reviews of violent and absolutely raunchy movies like "Def Jam’s How To Be A Player."

In this review, Channel One writes: "…he’s not too worried because he spends an entire day visiting his roster of women, taking along his friends so he can dispense advice on what it takes to be a player including such gems as, ‘A married woman is a player’s dream.’"

Then Channel One writes: "What is your review of the movies "Def Jam’s How To Be A Player"?" When children saw the movie, they would email Channel One and their reviews would be posted. Here was one that Channel One ran: "A.R. 432, age 14, ‘I haven’t seen the movie yet, but it looks like it’s gonna be DA BOMB!!! Bill Bellamy’s like alot of guys that I know…STAIGHT (sic) UP PLAYAS!!!! Maybe this movie will teach us girls what to look for in guys."

The gall of a Channel One-paid employee writing such words to children and then printing their comments about this raunch. This review was on channelone.com which is known only to children through its promotion on the in-school Channel One News.

Above: Channel One Hall of Shame – The makers of the drug and alcohol movie, Loser, paid Channel One a lot of money to heavily promote its sleazy movie on its channelone.com web site. Channel One offered kids "Loser" tee-shirts and movie posters in its "Be a Winner In the Loser" contest. In this scene an underage student on the left is buying beer. Not just any beer. This is a product placement ad for kids and other movie goers. This is Samuel Adams beer which is clearly visible for a long period in this shot. He will ask the girl beside him to go to a party where his friend will slip her a date rape drug. The usage of date rape drugs and binge drinking is normalized in this Channel One advertised movie. (Summer 2000)