Frequently Asked Questions About Channel One

Does Channel One use the same contract everywhere?

Jim Metrock: Apparently the same contract exists everywhere. It would be suicide for Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts' company to treat school systems differently.

Unless special deals are being made by individual systems, the "take-it-or-leave-it" contract terms of Channel One appear to apply to all schools. "90% of all school days in 80% of all classrooms. Don't even think about showing it before school starts and think you have honored the contract. Show the program in its entirety."

If anyone has a different contract, please fax us a copy at 205-822-3336. We will be happy to set the record straight if we are wrong.

Does a school ever get to own the TV equipment?

I talked with Mr. Martin Grant, Sales VP for Channel One, at a convention in 1997. I asked him if any school in the country ever gets to keep the TVs and the other equipment. He firmly said, "No". A Birmingham newspaper interviewed a local superintendent in October 1997 and he said that he felt the school system had satisfied the Channel One contract by having Channel One for at least three years and therefore the TVs were the property of the school system. That is simply not true.

The only schools to be told they would own their equipment, even if they stopped showing Channel One, were Eisenhower Middle School in Kansas City, KS, Mumford High School in Detroit, Gahr High School (private school) in Cerritos, CA; Billerica High School in Billerica, MA; Withrow High School in Cincinnati; and Central High School in Knoxville.

These schools that Whittle picked to be the pilot schools in 1989. They were told they would get to keep the equipment even if at the end of the test they didn't like Channel One. Of course, that tainted the entire "test" and nothing but praise came from these pilot schools. That in turn affected the decision-making of school boards across the country.

If a superintendent or board member speaks about the wonderful TV equipment the school received from Channel One, he or she needs to make sure the public is not unintentionally misled into thinking the school system owns the equipment. School administrators should make it clear that the school is loaned the equipment, that there is nothing they can do to ever own it, and in order to keep the equipment the school must broadcast Channel One to students at least 90% of all school days.

Who owns Channel One?

PRIMEDIA owns Channel One. The company was formerly known as "K-III Communications". They changed names in November 1997. PRIMEDIA is an investment arm of Kolhberg Kravis and Roberts. KKR owns 70% of the stock of PRIMEDIA.

Channel One was created by Ed Winter, the advertising genius of Whittle Communications, in 1989. Associated Newspapers (British), Phillips Electronics (Dutch) and Time Warner later became significant investors in Whittle. Whittle ran into financial troubles in 1993 and had to sell the only money-maker, Channel One, to K-III.

How much money do they make?

From Forbes Magazine, January 27, 1997: "...Channel One last year earned $30 million on revenues of $70 million. 'It's moving much more quickly than I expected, ' says K-III Chairman William Reilly, who claims that Channel One should be worth $1 billion in two years."

Because school boards have given Channel One unprecedented access to the children of their community, Channel One charges between $185,000 and $200,000 for one thirty-second commercial.

They are making a killing off of public schools. If a school board ever ran a financial analysis of the Channel One contract, it would be a sobering experience for the community.

My school system won't make tapes available for parents. What can I do?

First, try to ascertain why the school is reluctant to share the content of the Channel One programs with parents. Requiring parents to view Channel One at school is an obstacle for parental review. Remember that a principal may be following the dictates of the superintendent or school board, so it is best to send your request to the school board.

Try to make the decision easier for the board. Buy at least three blank VCR tapes and give them to the school for taping Channel One for parents. (One tape will have five episodes on its and will be available for checkout the following week by parents, while the second or third tapes are being used to tape the following weeks. The first week's tape is then used for Week 4.)

Taping the show is easier for school personnel than having parents coming into the school at various times for viewing the show.

As a last resort, legal action can be taken. The state attorney general's office is the best place to start, after you have given up on the school system voluntarily sharing the program with the community.

Channel One is part of the curriculum. Every state has laws that protect a parent's right to view and review textbooks and Channel One is much more influential than a textbook. (From "Not For Sale" Summer 1997) "The tapes (for the Vassar and Johns Hopkins studies) were acquired by parent Brad Rockwell of Dallas, Texas who contacted the Texas Attorney General 's office and threatened litigation after his child's school refused to yield the tapes for his review. 'I'm glad that after all these years, the actual content of Channel One is finally being brought to light,' Rockwell said."

The bottom line: If a school refuses to allow the dispersion of Channel One tapes to parents and other taxpayers, then you have a much deeper problem than just having Channel One eating up school time and tax money.

What happens if we stop showing Channel One?

Channel One is apparently reluctant to checkup on school compliance. If they know a school is not honoring the contract, then they will have to remove the equipment and - Heaven Forbid - have to subtract your students off the number they give to the advertisers. That means advertisers would pay Channel One less for each ad.

The Birmingham Post-Herald did a wonderful article on Channel One this year. They found that seven school systems in the Birmingham area still have a contract with Channel One. From the material in the article it appears that probably everyone of the seven systems is violating the Channel One contract in one or more ways - and probably have been violating it for years! Yet they still have the equipment.

Obligation believes that school systems diminish themselves when they knowingly violate contracts with suppliers. The Channel One contract is a major contract with a school system. Showing the program before school starts, letting individual principals honor or not honor the contract, showing it 30% of school days, or not showing it at all are matters of ethics and legal responsibility for individual boards and superintendents to deal with.

From what we have seen, it's an honor system, with school systems deciding that this is a contract that doesn't have much downside if it is breached.

From the Channel One contract with the Vestavia Hills City School Board (Birmingham, AL): C. School Agreements (4) "... The only penalty to the School for not showing Channel One is that Whittle may terminate this agreement and remove the Equipment." What that appears to say is a school system can pull the plug at anytime and suffer no penalty other than that would happen if the contract was not renewed. Check with your school board attorney.

Can you end the contract at any time?

Looks like it. See above.

I can't believe Marilyn Manson's music was played on Channel One. Prove it.

On May 23, 1996, Channel One opened their show with the sickening sounds of Marilyn Manson's remake of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams". This is the song that the lead singer of Marilyn Manson, also named Marilyn Manson, said that the Devil told him if he recorded it, then riches would be his. (Manson is a self-described satanic rock group that has suicidal and other offensive lyrics.) Channel One did not play any explicit lyrics on the show, but it was very apparent who was singing the song. On the Channel One website, children posted messages saying they couldn't believe Channel One played Manson on the air - it was so cool.

Manson's band was not seen. It was only the music that filled the middle schools and high schools of America. Was it a terrible mistake by a new staff person at Channel One? The same song was played in October going into a commercial break. Also on the Channel One web site, Manson's "Beautiful People" single was listed as one of the top ten songs in the country according to the votes of Channel One's web visitors. This children's web site had no business pushing any music group on children, much less Marilyn Manson.

Because of Obligation's protests to Channel One, their web site dropped Manson from their weekly "Playlist". Obligation has asked Channel One to apologize for many things over the past two years. Our request for an apology for playing Marilyn Manson has been ignored by the company.

We have copies of the programs.

Is Channel One a good financial deal for schools?

Absolutely not. Ask your school system for the answer to this question: " How much does it cost to have one student in our school for one minute?" They probably have never thought about costs in terms of "one minute", but it won't take long for them to get back with you. My school system has a cost of nine and a half cents. That was the 1996 figure and it came from the State Department of Education. Try the central office of your system first, then if unsatisfied, call the state department of education.

Once you have the cost per minute, multiply by 12 minutes per episode of Channel One. Multiply by the number of days Channel One has to be shown (90% of the days students have to go to school (in Alabama .90 x 175 days).) Do the math and you will arrive at the cost for one child to watch the minimum number of Channel One shows. Multiply that by the student body. It ain't going to be pretty.

Defenders will say - "It's in home room! It's in home room! Home room is a waste anyhow and no learning time is lost to Channel One.' They miss the point that taxpayers paid for every minute of school - including home room. It there is that much time for watching this MTV-like show in the school day, then something is wrong. It needs to be corrected. Taxpayer money is sacred. Channel One is making a killing off of our schools because no one, back when the contract was signed, and no one now, has taken the time to calculate the financial loss to the school system when you trade the rental value of TVs and the educational value of the Channel One TV show for an hour of student time per week.

How does a school know Channel One is educationally sound?

They don't. If they say it is "educationally sound", ask them to tell you and the community on what do they base that determination. This basic question cuts to the heart of the Channel One problem. A school board that keeps something in the school that is not educationally sound has failed the community.

Who opposes the use of Channel One in a classroom?

The National PTA has a resolution that was adopted by the 1990 Convention delegates. It was entitled "Commercial Exploitation of Students in School". The last paragraph: "Resolved, that the National PTA and its constituent bodies seek and support state and federal legislation and/or regulations that would protect students from exploitation by prohibiting a business from bringing into the school any program that would require students to view advertising or to study specific instructional programs as a condition of the school receiving a donation of money or donation or loan of equipment."

Guess who they were talking about? Resolutions will not state a specific company name for obvious reasons. This resolution was directed at Channel One. To our knowledge nothing has changed the National PTA's position.

The American Association of School Administrators is also opposed to commercials in the school. You can see the full list of opponents at this link.

Who endorses the use of Channel One in a classroom?

We know of no educational organization that endorses the use of Channel One in a public school. If anyone reading this knows of any organization or group, no matter how smal, that endorses Channel One, please email us and we will post the information.

Is Channel One getting better or worse?

Our experience with Channel One started in 1995. This was after Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts bought Channel One from the "visionary" ad man, Christopher Whittle. Whittle Communications pulled some bonehead stunts, such as advertising the tasteless magazine "Mouth2Mouth". This was a Time-Warner start-up magazine and they wanted the captive teen audience of Channel One to get on fire about it.

With articles like, "How to Tell Fake Breasts Without Squeezing" and "Who's Doing Who on 90210", the magazine was inappropriate for all of Channel One's audience. At the time Time-Warner owned a third of Whittle. That is part of the reason. Channel One later admitted they made a mistake.

But the mistakes Channel One have made since we have been watching are significant.

Channel One in 1996 started advertising their web site, channelone.com. This site presents children with a lot of problems. See the problems with their web site detailed at this link.

Movies have been advertised on the in-school show ("See the movie this weekend, because you can enter a contest next week if you know the right answer from the movie!" (not an exact quote - but close)

Students were told to watch the most violent show on prime time network television (New York Undercover) so they could see the newest Reebok ad.

Students were told in a Channel One report that half of their parents used marijuana when they were young.

Is Channel One getting better or worse? They have to keep pushing the envelope or they will lose the attention of the students, and that is all they have to sell. If they lose the "eyeballs", then they don't make money, and then Henry Kravis is not happy.

Channel One is getting better for advertisers and Channel One's shareholders. It is getting worse if you are a student, parent, teacher, or taxpayer.

Is Channel One an educational concern?

No. Channel One is in the business of placing client's commercial messages in front of a captive audience of schoolchildren. They never held themselves out to be an educational establishment. Ad executives have run this company. Sitcom programmers produce the show.

You think an educator would come up with this pap? Do you think a journalist would plug a guest host's latest CD throughout the news show? Or spend three minutes trying to find a teacher walking in a park so the Channel One Teacher of the Year award can be given him?

School administrators and school board members, who have a contract with Channel One, would like to believe Channel One Network is a well-respected member of the educational community. They are a very well-envied member of the advertising industry. Confusing those two fields of endeavor can be hazardous to your schoolchildren.

What are the future plans for Channel One?

They want to be like MTV. They want to have their own cable channel on the TV at your home. They want to be every aspect of a teen's life. They have a brand. That brand has been pounded in their heads every day at school. The principal makes sure of that when he switches the tape machine on sends the broadcast out to every classroom.

Fan clubs have been created for some of the anchors on the TV show. Students call themselves "Channel One Students." If you were Channel One and you had this type of brand loyalty, what would you do with it?

Don't students have a right to opt-out of Channel One?

Yes, a 13-year-old has the right to stand up in a classroom of his or her peers and go to another classroom or out into the hall if his or her parents or the student himself does not want to participate in Channel One's daily show. But that won't happen for reasons that do not even need to be stated.

Why do we ask our children to be more courageous than we adults? Who are we kidding when we sign a contract that requires the showing of a TV show virtually every school day in the classroom, and think that that does not make it required viewing by the children trapped in that classroom?

We have been told by parents across the country that their principal's first comment upon hearing the parent is upset with Channel One, is "Well, your child can sit in the office while it is on." That may be well-intended by the principal, but the effect is to shut the parent up. What parent wants to paint a bull's eye on their child's back?

Channel One is mandatory, compelled, and required viewing of content.

Isn't Channel One an "award winning" production?

Channel One has won numerous awards. They won a George Peabody Award for an AIDS report. None of the awards were given to Channel One for effectiveness of teaching students.

Production awards will always come Channel One's way. They have the money of Henry Kravis and Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts behind them. Watch their show. It is put together like a work of art. It is slick. Quick cut-away graphics, hard rock and rap run seamlessly into the commercials. The set, "The Hacienda" is perfect for a youth-oriented show. Channel One is making 43% profit on its captive audience. They can afford to fly their young anchors all over the world, even if it is just to show that they are in harm's way to get a story.

Channel One is quick to mention that they are a Peabody Award winning news broadcast. Sounds impressive. And it is, but saying that alone will give people the wrong impression.

First, it sounds as if Channel One has won a Peabody every year. Channel One won it once and that was in 1992 for "A Decade of AIDS" report. Somewhere along the line they are going to have to stop pulling that tired horse out of the barn. Its like someone in their thirties still putting high school awards on their resume.

One has to understand what a Peabody award is all about to see understand that Channel One winning one should not necessarily give parents any comfort. A Peabody is given for a wide range of reasons. It is really peculiar in that the criteria for winning one is much more open than other awards of merit. That's what gives the Peabody some of its well-deserved reputation.

Channel One's Peabody was not given because the program was effective in teaching students. It said nothing about whether the show was tastefully done or if parents would be happy that it was shown to their children.

This year, two shows that received Peabody awards were the "X-Files" and "The Simpsons". Each of these producers can, until the end of time, state proudly, like Channel One, that they are "The Peabody -Award-Winning X-Files" and "The Peabody-Award-Winning Simpsons."

What is the problem with Channel One's web site? Why should that concern the school?

The school send students to the Internet and they can get hurt there.

Channel One advertises their Internet site every day on the in-school TV show. They tell students to use their chat rooms. They tell students to enter contests on their web site. They tell students to go online and answer polls at their web site. The school is a participant in get kids to www.channelone.com. Schools ought to be concerned about that.

There is no way a child can know about Channel One's web site except for the in-school program that they are forced to watch.

Just have one child meet up with a child predator in Channel One's chat rooms, or through Channel One's message boards, or through Channel One's "Personal Ads", or through Channel One's "Fresh Faces" and a school board member, a superintendent, a principal, and, yes, a teacher, if she or he, has worn a sandwich board for Channel One, will have to answer some hard-edged questions.

Administrators and school board members who still defend Channel One - The TV Show, better be ready to defend Channel One's - The Web Site. If you are one of these folks, why don't you see where you are sending your neighbors' children off to: www.channelone.com.

My child's teacher sees no problem with Channel One. Why?

Teachers don't have time to watch this show. Even with tenure, don't expect a teacher to start a fight she or he knows is almost impossible to win.
Obligation's efforts to educate Alabama parents about the problems with Channel One, began when a teacher pull Mrs. Pat Ellis (later to be Education Director of Obligation) aside at an Open House and told her, "Someone has to do something about Channel One."

Teachers, generally, have not been made aware of the constant controversy this program has generated nationwide since it was created.

When a school administrator endorses Channel One and teachers know that, do not expect opposition as long as that administrator is there.

We have seen a school system that's Superintendent and middle school principal have strongly endorsed Channel One. They have even gone on record in the local paper as supporting the TV show. It would be ill-advised for a teacher in that environment to speak against this vendor. That happens so often, that Obligation does not ask any teacher to take a position on Channel One. We certainly do not believe a publicly-paid school teacher should ever take a position endorsing a product or service, like Channel One.

My principal screens the show everyday. I trust my principal. Why should I still be concerned?

See below. "We screen all programs..."

If your school administrator is one who defends the Channel One contract, then you probably have heard several of these:

"Why spend our precious money on TV equipment when Channel One gives us the equipment?"

Sorry, they didn't give you ANYTHING. Administrators often unintentionally lead people to think that the equipment is the property of the school. Or that the school will own the equipment at a certain date. No school is given title to any equipment. NEVER. It is loaned to the school, and the school can keep possession as long as the TV show is shown 90% of all school days. You can't show the program enough to ever own the TVs. We fault school attorneys for not educating school board members.

Many schools refuse to sell their children to Channel One. They buy their own TV sets - like you are suppose to do. They spend their money on TVs, so they will not have to trade an hour of school time each week to Channel One's curious curriculum.

Why spend "precious money" on TVs, because schoolchildren are precious. They are not a commodity to sell like pork bellies.

Would a school agree to a contract that loaned the school kitchen equipment for "free" as long as the school served nothing but Acme hot dogs, and nothing but Acme hot dogs, for lunch each day of the school year?

"The commercials don't affect the students."

We have to contain our anger here. Commercials have impact on children. Advertisers pay around $200,000 for one 30-second commercial on Channel One. Are they throwing their money away? Channel One brags that they have more advertisers than ever.

What about cigarette print ads? The Joe Camel print ad campaign was criticized by many. If print ads affect children, then video commercials have got to have much greater impact.

This type statement is irrational. It shows a lack of media literacy. Don't allow this statement to go unchallenged.

Channel One's own literature says "We get to them". It has a double meaning, and one meaning isn't nice.

"Kids are used to commercials. They don't pay any attention to them."

The studies show otherwise. The commercials are repeated over and over and over and over. You can't help but remember them. The students are watching the commercials with their friends, unlike the typical situation at home. Peer pressure abounds. The students are not used to this type forced watching or listening to commercial pitches.

"The commercials are the same ones the kids see at home."

When you hear this you have a wonderful opportunity to land a "left hook". Anyone who says the above has seen very little Channel One. Immediately ask the person if they feel comfortable with making such a statement. They should sense danger and should start stammering "well, I, uh, I haven't, what I'm trying to say is I, uh, haven't seen a Channel One show in some time."

Here are some of the unique Channel One commericals: various "See-It-And-Win" movie commercials with a contest for students who can answer a question from the movie (some of the movies are PG-13), Snapple ran a contest for Channel One students, J.C. Penney ran special Arizona jeans commercials that told the students that their principal had 25% off coupons that he or she would be happy to hand out (a Wall Street Journal article focused on this sickening use of principals), Reebok had several special Channel One ads (one told Channel One students to watch "New York Undercover" for the new Reebok commercial -

"Undercover" was the most violent TV show on at the time), Skittles and Snickers debuted commercials on Channel One and made a big production about it to the students.

Also, no one forces a child to watch or listen to a commercial at home. All Channel One commercials have the implied endorsement of the school. All Channel One commercials are subsidized by taxpayers.

"The commercials are for legal products. Channel One has high standards for what can be advertised."

No products should be required viewing in a public school. Yes, off-color movies are legal, yes, $350 WebTVs are legal, yes, ultra-expensive Reeboks are legal. No school board ever had the right to sell children to legal companies. This is public school time. Taxpayers own it and when advertisers steal that time from children, the community ought to be outraged.

Channel One's main advertisers are junk food, junk drinks, junk movies, and junk TV shows. M&M/Mars, Pepsi, Warner Brothers movies and TV shows.

Obligation believes it is illegal for a public school to sell any public school time to private companies.

"Channel One only advertises products that help our students."

Junk food for the body (relentless candy commercials)and junk food for the mind ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer" TV show ad, "Ace Ventura" movie plus an in-school contest!). Channel One, however, is very caring. After making you watch Skittles, Snickers, M&Ms, Twix, and sugar & caffeine-loaded Mt. Dew ads from Monday to Friday, they will also advertise Clearasil, Oxy Balance and Clean & Clean acne preparations. The number one product Channel One advertises is itself. Is Channel One good for students? We think not.

"Look at all the free equipment we get for just two minutes of commercials a day."

The equipment is not free. Anybody that says that should be challenged immediately and publicly. That irresponsible statement cannot go unrefuted. No equipment is ever given the school. It is all loaned to the school. The school never has title to the equipment. Channel One will allow the school to use the TVs if, and only if, the school delivers the TV show to the children according to the signed contract.

Far from being "free", these are the most expensive TV sets around. Schoolchildren are paying for them with their time, and taxpayers are paying for that time. In Alabama, Obligation has calculated using State Department of Education figures, that a typical 23-student classroom wastes $2,600 a year being forced to watch Channel One.

"I personally find Channel One distasteful, but we need the TV sets."

If a school feels TV sets are necessary, then buy them. It is extremely expensive for a school to obtain the use of TV sets from Channel One. They want an hour a week of each student's time. The equivalent of one entire school day is spent watching nothing but commercials. No school board has a right to sell sacred school time.

"You are our first person to complain about Channel One."

Of course, you are. Channel One is invisible. Even moms that volunteer at the school do not get to see this show. Channel One got in place after much controversy in the early 1990's. Then people forgot about it. A school system should be thankful that you are giving them an opportunity to correct the mistake before the public gets involved. A wise school board and superintendent would quietly and quickly pull the plug on Channel One. The weight of the facts and opinion are against the use of Channel One in a public school. A school system should not wait until a community expresses its disapproval.

"Channel One is only controversial because you are making it controversial."

The whole concept of Channel One is controversial. The idea of marketing to children during their school time is outrageous. It is only because schools are in such desperate funding situations that they succumb to Channel One's bait. Read our quotes about advertising in schools to see what others have to say about Channel One. Unfortunately, it still is fashionable in some circles to "shoot the messenger."

"We screen all the programs and we will never let anything inappropriate get by us."

That is impossible to do. The tapes we have reviewed came from a middle school. The principal, a very religious man, screened every show. We were only allowed to view the shows that passed his personal review. In those tapes, were the Marilyn Manson music, repeated urgings from Channel One anchors for the students to use their chat rooms, very ambiguous drug stories (i.e."half your parents smoked marijuana when they were your age", "See-It-And-Win" movie contests, movie ads for the adult comedy "Down Periscope, a Reebok ad that urged kids to see the most violent show on television, an ad for TV-14 "Stephen King's The Shining", and promotions for the repulsive WB network sitcom "Unhappily Ever After".

Channel One likes to say that there are 300,000+ monitors of the content. They convey the false idea that every teacher is watching the show in its entirety and will immediately let Channel One know if they see something wrong.

It doesn't work that way. Channel One has such a strange concept of teachers, that you can forgive them for thinking teachers have some much time on their hands that they can watch Channel One each day. Teachers are too busy to watch this TV show. Some may. Some may discuss the content with students after the show. Some may use Channel One as a media literacy tool, pointing out how the commercials and the show itself are constructed to manipulate its audience. One has to believe the majority of teachers are not watching the show. And if a teacher becomes upset a the content or the mere fact Channel One is being shown, to whom will she or he complain?

"It's the 90's. Teens and pre-teens go to R-rated movies and listen to explicit lyrics. The Channel One web site just reflects real life for today's kids."

Channel One has told the world that it is molding the minds of schoolchildren. They want to be to be to teenagers (and pre-teens) what MTV is to the Generation-Xers. In there sales literature they say "We Get To Them". In other sales literature, they state that they are "Shaping a generation's view of the world." Maybe we ought to believe Channel One when they say they are doing more than reflecting the world.

Channel One's idea of the world is not pretty. Channel One thinks that its young audience must be going to R-rated movies and buying the latest gangstra-rap CDs. They must think children have no hesitation about going on the Internet and giving the world personal information about themselves. Channel One must think that schoolchildren and their parents will have no problem with a "Personal Ads" Internet feature where kids can exchange email addresses with total strangers on the 'Net.

The children in your community deserve better than the slop Channel One dishes out.

"Our teachers love Channel One."

There are many teachers that like Channel One. They are no better or worse than teachers that dislike it. Teachers are very adaptable. They have had to teach children without the equipment, supplies, and time they would like in a perfect world. Just as we don't give our teachers what they need, we often give them what they don't need. But they adapt. They make the best of the situation.

The National Education Association is the largest teachers union in the country. They have always opposed Channel One . Often individual teachers feel helpless in fighting Channel One because the school board, superintendent and principal put it in place and how are you going to fight "city hall"?

Teachers often do not know that there is CNN Newsroom designed for classrooms and it has no commercials. CNN, unlike Channel One, is a world-renown news-gathering organization.

Has anyone ever heard of a school that owns their own TVs entering into a contract with Channel One to show the daily program? That indicates what teachers and administrators think of the program. if they can get TVs another way, they say "No" to Channel One.

"Our students love Channel One."

OK, you got us. We will admit that a large percentage of students like the idea of having this MTV-like TV show on during school. They hear snippets of the hottest new rap songs, they have cool hip anchors that talk their language, rock bands co-host the show pushing their latest CDs, and the latest movies are advertised in their full glory right in the classroom. The funniest and zaniest commercials for junk food and soft drinks are played over and over and over until everyone knows the commercials by heart. Some ads are specifically made for "Channel One students". Totally awesome, dude.

Yet, some students are smarter than Channel One gives them credit for. Some see exploitation. Some see manipulation. Some students see school administrators, school board members, and teachers "a sleep at the wheel." A youth group called Unplugged has been fighting commercialism in the classroom for years.

Want to see how students really feel about Channel One? Ask the student body if they would rather watch Channel One every day or get out of school 12 minutes earlier each day? Goodbye, Channel One.

"There's not any difference between a commercial on Channel One and the Coke logo on our scoreboard."

This is silly, but you are going to hear it. Print ads are no where near as powerful as video ads. Video commercials are the most creative images in our culture. School administrators who bring up the "Pepsi cups" defense are basically saying, "Look, we've sold out the kids already. Why make a fuss about Channel One."

Logos are advertisements. Much like the mentioning of underwriters for PBS shows. It is a matter of degree, but defenders of Channel One cannot be allowed to be confuse the public by equating billboards with required viewing of video commercials inside the classroom. Channel One commercials become part of the curriculum unlike the scoreboard ad.

Educational organizations have taken a position on commercials in the classroom.

Parents and other taxpayers should be concern about school administrators that cannot differentiate between a logo from a local company trying to help out a school and the commercials from Channel One which is trying to exploit the school.

If the gatekeepers are going to refuse to watch the gate, or are so confused they don't know what they are watching out for, then maybe the children need a new gatekeeper.

"Corporate involvement in the school is the wave of the future."

We need more corporate involvement in our public schools. That involvement must support the SCHOOL'S AGENDA not the corporation's agenda. The involvement must enhance the education of students and that has to be determined by teachers, the school administration and the school board. Schools should reject any corporation that will give (or in Channel One's case "loan") things of value only if students jump through a hoop and perform acts of corporate servitude, such as sitting attentively and watching corporate messages.

There are corporations that give to schools with the best intentions of the school guiding them, and there are corporations that give out of greed. There are corporations that give much to the schools and may take away only some goodwill, and there are corporations that take away from the school much more than they ever gave. School boards need to know the difference.

"Somebody has got to pay for this stuff."

The school has to pay for the "stuff". Paying for a TV network with cash is much cheaper than paying for it with taxpayer-purchased student time. Even if a school system thinks it can afford to spend up to an hour a week of a students school time on Channel One, the student can't afford it.

"Students don't watch the news at home. This is their only way to get some idea of what's going on in the world. Don't take that away from them."

Defenders of Channel One, unintentionally, give the public one of the best reasons to get rid of the program. Someone will sooner or later say, "Our students don't watch the nightly news, or read the newspaper, or watch the news magazine shows, or read the news on the Internet, or read Time or Newsweek. If it wasn't for Channel One, they would get no news at all. Channel One fulfills a wonderful purpose."

We rest our case. Several studies confirm the above statements. Students who watch Channel One are no more interested in news than those students that do not watch it. Channel One does not engage students in the news. It does not spark their interest. The commercials obviously work because advertisers constantly report back that they do, and advertisers are lined up to get their messages out. But the news doesn't. It the news did work, then students would be watching the nightly news to see if anything changed from the Channel One story. They would ask their parents if there was a certain story in the paper. They don't.

There should be a difference in news interest between students that watch a current events program one hour a week and those that don't. Channel One is about advertising. It is a "marketer's secret weapon" says Channel One. It is not a tool to engage children in the news.

"There is no taxpayer waste. Channel One is shown during homeroom. This is non-instructional time. No time at all is taken away from learning time."

When taxpayers in your community paid their property taxes, or whatever other tax funds your public schools, they paid for so many minutes of school time. A minute of school time includes teacher salaries, insurance, supplies, electric bills, legal fees, depreciation, and on and on.

Every second of time a child is in school costs are being incurred - money is flowing. This money-meter is running at the same rate whether a student is in an Algebra class or a home room class. Taxpayers want their money to be used wisely. They want the biggest educational bang per buck that they can get.

If a school invites Channel One into the school, then the 12-minute TV show must be shown sometime during the official school day. It is usually placed in a non-instructional period. In Alabama, we call it "home room". Home room, by design, is not suppose to be any longer than necessary. Take roll, give make up tests, read announcements, take up money, etc. "It ain't recess."

But now you have to show a 12-minute TV show. If you ever thought about decreasing home room or eliminating it to add to core curriculum time, forget it. Some schools even start school early to accommodate Channel One. More heat, more air conditioning, so Channel One's advertisers can have a comfortable setting to watch their commercials.

Twelve minutes is wasted. A twenty-minute home room that remains twenty minutes with Channel One being shown is still a waste because you could have decrease this non-instructional time by half. That which is subtracted from non-instructional could be added to instructional - and taxpayers, parents, students (in the long run) will rejoice.