Honk if you have owned Channel One News.

March 22, 2017

The advertising guru Christopher Whittle created Channel One News in 1989.  Whittle sold his idea to schools as a way for students to learn about current events.  He sold his idea to advertisers as an effective way to get commercials in front of a captive audience of young people.

Whittle Communications (1989-1994)   Whittle had to sell his very profitable Channel One company to pay off debtors.

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PRIMEDIA (1994-2007)  K-III Communications, later to be known as Primedia, bought Channel One for a song. The price tag was an incredibly low $300 million because Whittle had to get rid of the company fast. The price for Channel One got even lower when K-III Communications discovered Whittle owed $240 million was a steal. PRIMEDIA owned Channel One when it’s profitability began to plunge in 2000.

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Alloy Media+Marketing (2007-2010)  Alloy acquires the assets of Channel One for no cash outlay. Channel One has a net worth of $Zero. Channel One came within weeks of closing before Alloy rescued them.

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ZelnickMedia (2010-May 13, 2014)  ZelnickMedia, famous for their ultraviolent Grand Theft Auto video games, buys Alloy and agrees to take Channel One along with the profitability parts of Alloy. Even a stink bomb of a company like ZelnickMedia couldn’t stomach Channel One for long.

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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (May 13, 2014-present)  Before Linda Zecher was canned by her board for making bad decisions, she made the bold move to acquire the pariah of public education: Channel One News. Her plans to repackage Channel One News as a digital player in the lucrative education market was a colossal failure.  Houghton pushed a subscription model of Channel One, but schools balked.  As the 2016-17 school year comes to an end, Houghton has to be considering either a total shutdown of their controversial Channel One unit or palming it off on a company that will agree to acquire the company’s remaining assets and liabilities.

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