Channel One News is a 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 demanding the school show their daily, 12-minute, hyper-commercial TV show to students. That time equals one lost week of instructional time per year. No educational organization endorses the use of Channel One News. Channel One is disproportionately found in schools in low-income areas.
In 2007, Channel One News became even more controversial when it was acquired by Alloy Media and Marketing (creators of Gossip Girl and other raunchy teen and preteen fare). Once the company claimed 8+ million students under contract to watch their program. Since 1997 they have continued to lose schools and now they claim they have “nearly six million” students watching their program.
Updated May 16, 2012: From Jim Metrock: The “Yuck Factor” when it comes to Channel One at Warner Middle School has just soared. A parent sent me a link to the school handbook where the school’s devotion to the hyper-commercial Channel One TV show is clear. On normal school days, Channel One will be shown during...
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“I am appalled by this effort (Channel One’s effort to bring commercials into AL secondary school classrooms). I urge you not enter this or any other agreement which subjects students to commercial advertising.” Wayne Teague, Alabama State Superintendent of Education in a letter to district superintendents – September 27, 1989
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Channelone.com replay of May 10 program blacks out two sections of its report on President Obama changing his position on gay marriage. What did Channel One show students that it won’t allow parents to see? Channel One’s obsession with covering gay rights issues becoming a problem for middle and elementary school administrators. ...
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Warning: Explicit language Channel One News wants kids to buy and listen to Dead Sara songs so they can vote on their favorite song. From Dead Sara’s Myspace page: “Ironically, ‘We Are What You Say’ is Dead Sara’s poppiest song, ‘though it’s still kind of gnarly and sleazy,’ Medley notes. ‘It’s like,...
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Last year Channel One News announced they were teaming up with the UK whiteboard company Promethean Limited to roll out an elementary school version of their in-school TV show. Many people may not know that Channel One has always coveted the elementary school market, going back to the early 90′s. This New York Times...
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From Jim Metrock: Channel One News has four anchors right now – Jessica Kumari, Shelby Holliday, Scott Evans and the recently-hired Maggie Rulli. After last school year, I rated the chances of each of the anchors coming back. Three came back for the start of the 2011-12...
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From Jim Metrock: It didn’t take long for the new Channel One News anchor Maggie Rulli to show her lack of concern for journalistic integrity. At the start of the show she immediately introduces a Jessica Kumari promotional interview with the directors of a new Disney movie “Chimpanzee.” The movie was released on April...
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