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What People Have Said about Channel One and Advertising in Schools "Stripped of its pious rhetoric, Whittle Communications [Channel One] is offering a simple barter deal to schools: We provide TV sets and other equipment, you pay for the lease, not with cash, but with a guaranteed number of students for a fixed number of minutes per year...."Channel One represents the first attempt to divert a fixed amount of time, day after day, away from an educational purpose to a commercial one -- all this while the mandatory attendance laws are in effect. "A major debate has begun because this scheme offends educators (and parents) ethically and calls into question the very reason our society made a massive investment in public education. If a school sells portions of its day to Nike, Mars candy or Burger King (as it does with Channel One), what is to prevent schools from interrupting classes for other commercials in different formats?" California's Superintendent of Public Instruction, Bill Honig, "Counterpunch: The Case Against Channel One in the Classroom." Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1991 LEE HOCHBERG of Oregon Public Broadcasting: It's those commercials that induced the Seattle school board recently to begin phasing Channel One out of its schools. Board member Michael Preston said Channel One isn't about educating.
From PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, May 20, 2002
"Does anyone really believe kids need more time watching commercial TV, especially during school hours? Kids need to read, write and think in school - not watch warmed-over news and compulsory commercials." "Don't Plug Commercial TV into NY High Schools." Newsday editorial opposing Channel One, May 5, 1994. "Television in the classroom, on balance, impedes the education process. The 12 minutes allotted to Channel One should be spent instructing students in fundamental subjects. Since Channel One doesn't seem to work, it behooves parents to ask that it be removed. It is their children who will have to pay the price if they don't." From the Houston Chronicle editorial opposing Channel One. "Fade to Black: Cy-Fair Pulling Plug on Channel One Is a Good Move." The Houston Chronicle, May 18, 1994. "Channel One is little more than junk news in an MTV-style wrapper...It doesn't seem like much, but two minutes of junk a day on top of what kids may be getting at home (think "Beavis and Butt-head") is enough to ruin a young mind. Two minutes a day equals one full school day a year. And that's one day too many to waste on junk, especially junk that pretends it's not." New York Daily News editorial entitled "Channel One is Channel Dumb." January 23, 1997. "We have absolutely no right to sell our children like this." New York State Board Regent Shirley C. Brown reaffirming the Board of Regents ban on Channel One. The Board stated the Channel One program treated schoolchildren as "commodites to be exploited." "Market research demonstrates that such advertising [referring to that on Channel One] does have an impact, contrary to the claims of some, particularly when it is designed specifically for a target audience, shown repeatedly, and when competing products are not permitted the same access. Furthermore, we are concerned that younger children especially will perceive the products as having the implicit endorsement of the schools, including products that are beyond the financial reach of the families of many of our local children." Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, 1993 letter in support of state legislation barring Channel One from schools. "Parents ought to have the right to view the programs and decide if they're suitable for their children to watch. They control their children's viewing habits at home. They should be able to do the same at school. And school systems ought to find better ways to get technology than selling out children to Channel One. There are better uses for students' time than subsidizing such crass commercialism in classrooms. If Channel One weren't shown, an extra week of school time could be added each year - at no extra cost or taking no extra days. That's a much better bargain than a TV a school doesn't even own." Editorial in The Birmingham News - August 15, 1998 The Birmingham News is Alabama's largest newspaper "Traditional targeting - television, magazines, radio, billboards and so forth - is in vague disrepute. The rush is on to 'cut through the clutter.' ... A common advertising buzzword these days is 'captive' as in 'captive, hard-to-reach adults' or 'captive, upscale seniors.' ... The hot new captives are people who can't get away, and that is where the action is now." "Chris Whittle, who launched Channel One, then sold it, pioneered the way in exploiting captives - people in schools, doctors offices and laundromats. ... Some of these targeted people are only pseudo-captives. No one is forced to read wall posters or free magazines.The process becomes a cynical invasion of privacy only when the goal is to bombard people who cannot escape. This would include ... the trapped students in schools who can avoid the Pledge of Allegiance, but not TV ads in classes with Channel One ..." "It's time to resist the commercialization of everything, preferably before they start plastering the walls of churches, libraries, and apartment lobbies. The least we can do is to conduct a 'soft boycott' - make a mental not never to buy any product that irritates, offends or impels the viewer to break every nose in the nearest ad agency. Let the captives strike back." John Leo, "On Society" columnist (U.S. News and World Report), "Time To Rebel Against Advertisers", appeared in the Birmingham News December 30, 1997 "As schools struggle for funding, they become easy prey for entrepreneurs such as Chris Whittle, whose Channel One bribes school officials with TV monitors in exchange for an ability to deliver a captive young audience to advertisers with the implicit endorsement of the school. Educators have widely criticized the Whittle 'news' offering as a thin gruel. Studies have found no improvement in the current-events comprehension of students exposed to its content." "...What is wrong with all
this? In the case of education, commercialization is antithetical
to the pedagogic mission in several respects. Self-serving curricular
materials have no place in a school trying to foster critical
thinking. Chris Whittle's Channel One reinforces just what schools
are trying to wean children away from - short attention spans,
shallow factoids, instant analysis. A political democracy also
requires that news programs have reasonably serious content,
but advertiser dominance debases journalism into entertainment.
It leads to a subtle self-censorship, as well as a dumbing down
of content." "We continue to have deep concerns about the program (Channel One) and appreciate your efforts." "Our concern is much deeper than the content. We do not believe commercials should be sold in the program with a guarantee that students who are a captive audience in the classroom will view them. First, we have compulsory attendance laws in every state. Students must be in school. Second, taxpayers have already bought and paid for the school time. Third, our students should not be for sale or trade for anything, including television monitors and satellite dishes. Fourth, we don't believe the people who produce the program should be dictating a portion of the curriculum. As you know, 'CNN Newsroom' provides a current events service that carries no commercials, may be used in whole or in part or not at all, and is produced by an international news organization, not a marketing firm." "Our very best wishes." Gary Marx, Senior Associate Executive Director, the American Association of School Administrators, in a letter to Obligation, Inc., December 14, 1997 "Channel One is a marketer's secret weapon. When used creatively by today's innovative marketers, it is an unparalleled way to reach a massive teen audience in a highly relevant, important and uncluttered environment. Martin Grant, Channel One's President of Sales and Marketing, in a Channel One press release August 9, 1995 "...we appreciate your cordial note and your thoughtfulness in sending the alarming information regarding Channel One. You may be sure that Dr. Dobson shares your concerns about this news cast shown in our nation's schools. Your own involvement in this issue is an encouragement to him, for he believes that reform in America largely depends upon each of us taking personal responsibility to counteract the moral decay of our nation." "We are enclosing materials we have presented to our readership in the past on Channel One. We hope you find it interesting." David Snyder, Senior Correspondence Assistant to Dr. James Dobson, Focus on the Family, letter to Mrs. Pat Ellis, Obligation, Inc., November 12, 1997 "Like you, I do not believe children should be forced to watch Channel One. I appreciate your continued interest in this issue, and your commitment to the children of Alabama." Senator Richard Shelby, R - Alabama, in a letter to Obligation dated October 28, 1997 "The new president of Whittle's Channel One network, which has a daily captive audience of 8 million schoolkids, is talking about its vast, even revolutionary, advertising potential. With his ad agency background and knowledge of what clients need, Babbit notes, he's the right man to take Channel One to the next level. And that level, Babbit predicts, could be nothing less than a new icon in American culture. 'What I'm doing now (at Channel One) is as much the advertising business as the agency business,' he says. 'Here is a great media vehicle that will increase business for advertisers.' This kind of entree into the early ages of consumerism fascinates Babbit. 'There are opportunities for advertisers to use Channel One that have never been explored before,' he said. 'There's no way you can take a vehicle that reaches 8 million kids and track it the same way as a TV set in a living room.' 'Any commercial that you run on Channel One is going to have a great deal more significance and impact than elsewhere. There's an old adage (about advertising to kids) that says you have to grab their attention and say as much as you can in as short a period of time to reach them. That adage does not apply here.'" Joel Babbit, president of Channel One, "The Education of Joel Babbit - Profile of Atlanta Adman, Head of Channel One", AdWeek, October 4, 1993 "Your 11-year-old daughter enters middle school this month. Do you want her watching a television show every day in class that: has played music from shock rockers Marilyn Manson; encourages her to join online "chat" rooms; shows ads for what's been called the most violent prime-time series on TV (New York Undercover, with a TV-14 rating); promotes R-rated movies on its website?" ... Metrock has a compelling argument that school boards ought to heed. Why should we sell our children out to advertisers, especially when public schools, by virtue of showing Channel One programming, implicitly endorse everything students see? Channel One opponents cut a wide swath across the political spectrum: from the conservative Eagle Forum to the liberal National Education Association, the National PTA, the National Association of State Boards of Education, the American Association of School Administrators. The Alabama State Board of Education passed a resolution in 1991 urging local boards "to consider that agreeing to sell or provide an entrepreneur access via television reception and distribution to a captive audience in a public school classroom for commercial purposes is exploitation and a violation of the public trust. Right on both count." Bob Blalock, editorial writer and "Review and Comment" editor for The Birmingham News, in his article, "Why Not Pull Plug On Channel One In Classroom?" August 15, 1997
For years now, Channel One, a media operation founded and initially operated by school voucher entrepreneur Chris Whittle, has in effect seduced poor public schools without modern video equipment into a devil’s bargain in which the schools get technology (on loan) in return for subjecting their pupils to advertising in the classroom. Every nine minutes of Channel One’s soft news programming carries a mandatory three minutes of hardcore advertising, watched by students in that most legitimizing of all environments, their home classrooms. Students are required to watch or the deal is off.
Benjamin Barber, Gershon and Carol Kekst professor of civil society and a director of the Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland. May 2004 in AASA's The School Administrator magazine. "What You Can Do - Check your child's school to see if 'Channel One' is a mandatory part of instruction. Ask school administrators to let you review tapes of 'Channel One' broadcasts. Find out who reviews 'Channel One' programming at your school and share the kinds of stories or advertising you would find offensive. Contact your local school board members to express your opinion about 'Channel One'." Advice given in Focus on the Family Citizen magazine article "What Will Kids See on Classroom TV?" , September 21, 1992 "School is where young people are supposed to think critically about the world. Increasingly, they are surrounded by critical compromises. ... The worst example is Channel One ..." Derrick Jackson, Columnist for the Boston Globe, "Companies Turn Schoolchildren Into Commodities," Birmingham Post-Herald, March 11, 1997 "The Channel One corporation has total control over the content of the programs; the program cannot be halted once it starts, and it cannot be edited. Teachers and parents have no practical way to view the program before the students see it." "The time devoted to Channel One adds up to six days of instruction a year lost to schoolchildren. It's time to call a halt to this exploitation of a captive audience." Phyllis Schlafly, president of Eagle Forum, "How K-III Communications Buys a Captive Audience," newspaper column May 28, 1997 "... the price is too high." The St. Louis Dispatch in an editorial about Channel One entitled "Students for Sale", November 12, 1993 "With the expanding presence of advertising targeted to younger and younger children, schools have become involved in serving up students as captive audiences to advertisers. It is time to pause and reflect on the appropriateness of various kinds of connections between businesses and schools, and the influence those connections might have on the integrity of education in a democracy. In light of the controversial nature of the issue, as well as the underlying ambivalence toward it, public discussion and workable policies are needed." Amy Aidman, "Advertising in the Schools", ERIC Digest, December 1995 "Advertising in Schools - Schools should be cautious in their use of any materials designed to promote commercial products or containing commercial advertising because students are required to attend school and are therefore a captive audience. Schools should have guidelines for use of materials provided by special-interest groups or by businesses that have a financial interest in advancing a particular point of view. Specifically, district policies should ensure that any commercial materials used in schools: (1) are consistent with the district's values, goals, and objectives, (2) respond to a clearly defined educational need, (3) support the adopted curriculum, and (4) do not promote a brand-name product. If educators use business-sponsored materials in the classroom, they should help students identify any biases the materials may contain. If students are too young to understand the bias, the materials should not be used. With reasonable exceptions (such as newspapers and magazines) materials containing advertising should not be used for instruction except when the purpose is to analyze the advertising itself." The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, "What We Believe: Positions of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development - The Educational Issues 1997" www.ascd.org "The news is not the point of Channel One. It is no more than filler ... meant primarily to get us ready for the ads." "Channel One teaches students six messages: 'Watch.' 'Don't Think.' 'Let Us Fix It.' 'Eat Now.' 'You're Ugly.' ' and 'Just Say Yes.'" Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media Studies, Johns Hopkins University, His study of Channel One was entitled: "How to Be Stupid: The Teachings of Channel One" January 27, 1997. "The motive behind Channel One is painfully, embarrassingly obvious. It exists to deliver a captive youth audience to advertisers." "Channel One teaches them (students) to consume. It teaches them that who they are depends more on the kind of sneakers they wear and the kind of junk food they eat than the strength of their intellect or the quality of their character." Elaine Lamy, Executive Director of INFACT, a 25,000 member corporate accountability organization in a letter to Mr. William Reilly, Chairman of K-III Communications, urging him to reconsider purchasing Channel One from Whittle Communications - August 10, 1994."Local boards of education are obligated to assure that students, as a consequence of the compulsory attendance laws, are not made a captive audience for required viewing, listening to, or reading commercial advertising. Therefore, no local board may enter into any contract or agreement with any person, corporation, association or organization, pursuant to which students are regularly required to observe, listen to, or read commercial advertising." North Carolina State Board of Education ruling - April 3, 1991. Channel One beat the Board of Education in the courts. It can be required viewing in the state now. "In addition to compromising the neutrality and objectivity of the schools, Channel One also weakens the moral authority to deal with health and safety issues, such as diet and nutrition." Hugh Rank, Professor of English, Governors State University, in his article - "Channel One: Asking the Wrong Questions" in Education Leadership - January 1994 "What makes Channel One important is that it signifies the official sanctioned opening up of school content to business sponsorship and organization. It is part of the growing acceptance of schools as places where businesses can compete for profits." Dr. Michael Apple, in his article "Channel One Invades Schools" in "Rethinking Schools" May/June 1992 "This (Channel One) may be the kind of news that sells advertising time, yields a high return in school T-shirts, and helps to promote a consciousness of Channel One as a youth-oriented brand name. However, it is dubious whether such news provides educational or civic benefits to either students or educators at schools that receive Channel One." The last two sentences of "News for a Captive Audience: The Case of Channel One" a study of Channel One by Professor William Hoynes, Department of Sociology, Vassar College - January 1997 "Channel One has nowhere to go but up. We need to make Channel One omnipresent, to find out how to make it resonate in kids' lives over the summer." Heidi Diamond, VP Promotion, Channel One, in the article "Channel One Grows Up" in AdWeek - October 2, 1995 "The first order of business is to define the brand. 'Channel One' has a place in kids' life maybe that's in the movies, in the mall or on their computer screens." Heidi Diamond, Exec. VP Marketing, Channel One in Advertising Age - March 1996 "We are opposed to product advertising in the classroom, particularly when it's on television. The students have no option but to look at it, and we think that's indoctrination." "Schools are not for sale. ... Suppose that you're a citizen of the community. Is that what you're paying taxes for? Is that how you want your sons and daughters to spend time in school?" "Channel One is a diversion. It's not really education." Dr. Scott Thomson, Executive Director, National Association of Secondary School Principals, "Commercials in the Classroom", School and College, Sept. 1989. "Kids in school should not be bombarded with marketing. There's an implied endorsement when it comes to the school environment. You expect the school to provide the truth." Anita Holmes, Assistant Director, Consumer Union, Education Digest, April 1996 "I am appalled by this effort (Channel One's). I urge you not to enter this or any other agreement which subjects students to commercial advertising." Wayne Teague, Alabama State Superintendent of Education in a letter to Superintendents - September 27, 1989 "The current practice of the State Department of Education is in keeping with this position (opposing Channel One). I applaud efforts by parents and others who desire to keep our public school classrooms free of commercial advertising." Thomas Ingram, Jr., Acting Alabama State Superintendent of Education in a letter to Mrs. Pat Ellis of Parents Against Commercials in the Classroom, July 12, 1995 "The most egregious example of the commercialization in schools is Channel One. ... Since Channel One reaches over 40 percent of the nation's teenagers, it is able to charge advertisers a hefty $200,000 per 30-second spot. In its pitch to advertisers, the company promises access to the largest teen audience in history in a setting free of 'the usual distractions of telephones, stereos, remote controls, etc.' The Whittle program shattered the taboo against outright advertising in the classroom. Despite controversy in many states, only New York has banned Channel One from its schools." Michael Sandel, contributing editor, "Ad Nauseam", The New Republic, September 2, 1997 "Because Channel One's primarily
visual mode of transmitting information may ultimately impact
critical thought processes, turning potentially analytically
active students into passive recipients of propagandized or commercialized
messages, it demands and deserves highly critical national attention."
"Now the cornerstone of Whittle Communications, Channel One has grown from a six-school test market offering in 1989 to a highly profitable and sophisticated advertising vehicle reaching 40 percent of America's secondary school youth by 1993. In the process, it has proven to be a gold mine, for both Whittle and for its advertisers, who are offered a unique combination of category exclusivity, target marketing, positive editorial environment, and captive audience. Indeed, both the program's educational content and format are intrinsically linked to advertising's form, substance, and purpose. The reason for the success of the entertaining news program can be found in the combination of Whittle's marketing genius, the economic plight of the nation's schools, and the addiction of American youth to video communication." "Although the increasingly aggressive presence of commercial interests in the schools is far from surprising in a nation already conditioned to accept advertising as a tolerable trade-off for the things which it desires, it cannot be ignored that a willingness to accept immediate and often subtle commercialism may be fundamentally destructive to the long-term goals of education, upon which the ultimate well-being of society depends. The controversy surrounding Channel One points, above all, to the necessity of reexamining our educational priorities and methods as well as to the advisability of clearly defining the limits of capitalistic enterprise within our educational system." Ann Marie Barry, Professor of Communications, Boston College, in "Advertising and Channel One" 1994 "The only audience of interest to Whittle Communications for Channel One is the mass captive audience of adolescent students in school. It is my belief that this audience is the one which would be unethical for educators to deliver to them. Teachers and students have more important things to do with the time spent in school." John C. Belland, Department of Educational Policy and Leadership, Ohio State University, in his article "Is This The News?" - September 1994 "An Alabama-based child advocacy group, Obligation, Inc., has joined a growing number of educators, researchers and parents who think public school systems should remove Channel One from their classrooms. Channel One is the controversial "infotainment TV program that over eight million middle and high school students are forced to watch daily." "The Mississippi Baptist Christian Action Commission would like to hear from persons who know that Channel One is being used in the public schools in their area. Such information will allow the Christian Action Commission to determine the scope of the problem in the state and to assist groups who would desire to address the issue." "Channel One - Captive Audience in the Classroom" article in "Salt & Light" A Newsletter of the Mississippi Baptist Christian Action Commission, November/December 1997. "Parents entrust their children to our public schools. 'Channel One' is a commercial transaction that violates this trust. We have no right - legally or ethically - to sell access to our students by converting the educational purpose of school to a commercial one, even if schools receive a modest benefit in return." Dr. Bill Honig, Superintendent of Public Instruction (State Superintendent) California, Statement made during U.S. Senate hearing on Channel One, Senate Hearing 102-242, July 3, 1991 "Watching commercials is not educational and should not be part of the school system. ... We should put our teachers back in charge, have our tax dollars spent correctly and get mandatory viewing of advertising out of our public school systems." Carden Johnston, M.D., The Children's Hospital, Birmingham, AL , letter to the editor, Birmingham News, September 12, 1997 "The exploitation of our schools by corporate hucksters willing to put their short-term profit ahead of the public's long-term well-being makes the already difficult task of school improvement harder." " By choosing to sign up for Channel One, however, a school board was deciding to abdicate its authority over a twelve-minute portion of the school day. Channel One is produced in a distant location, takes up topics that are not reviewed or approved in advance, and presents them in a way that is not selected for their appropriateness to the rest of a school's instructional activities. In this respect, it is the negation of local control. School boards that approve Channel One are agreeing NOT to control their school programs. Instead, those boards, which embody local political authority, cede their decision making responsibility to a corporation whose decisions are dictated by the prospects for profit in a commercial market, not by the needs of the local communities." Professor Alex Molnar, "Giving Kids the Business" 1996 Westview Press "K-III Communication's mission is not education, nor is it to be the champion of 'local control' for school districts. It's mission is to make money for its owners, in the case of Channel One, by delivering up a large, captive, impressionable audience to advertisers who are willing to pay great sums, estimated at over $600,000 per day, for the prize." New York State Department of Education memo to the New York State Assembly, May 23, 1995 "Advertisers can really hit a home run by involving our audience" Martin Grant, Channel One President of Sales and Marketing, Wall Street Journal, September 15, 1997 "A child's psyche is not a commodity to be sold. Yet, we offer up large numbers of children to the highest bidders for advertising time. Until we ban TV commercials from schools, these parasitic practices (Channel One) will continue unabated." Roy Fox, Professor, University of Missouri - Columbia, "Manipulated Kids: Teens Tell How Ad Influence Them", Educational Leadership, Sept. 1995 "We asked five questions of the students and found that students who watched Channel One regularly were more likely to agree that: 1. Money is everything; 2. A nice car is more important than school; 3. Designer labels make a difference; 4. I want what I see advertised; and 5. Wealthy people are happier than poor people. Summing up across the five items, we found a very strong statistical difference, suggesting that regular watching of Channel One reinforces materialistic attitudes." Bradley Greenberg and Jeffrey Brand, Educational Leadership, January 1994 "Many of our schools, especially in recent times, have allied themselves with this god (the god of Consumership) in a most emphatic way. I refer, for example, to the fact that approximately ten thousand schools have accepted the offer made by Christopher Whittle to include, daily, two minutes of commercial messages in the curriculum - the first time, to my knowledge, that an advertiser has employed the power of the state to force anyone to watch commercials." Neil Postman, in his book "The End of Education - Redefining the Value of School" 1995 "It is one thing when business is interested in young people as students. Quite another when they are interested in students as consumers. It is one thing when the marketplace supports the schools. Quite another when the schools become a marketplace." Ellen Goodman, 1989 "Every school day, Channel One is seen by as many teens as the Super Bowl. Channel One's audience exceeds the combined number of teens watching anything on television during Primetime! Huge ratings. Unsurpassed reach. Unparalleled impact among teen viewers." from Channel One sales literature. 1996 "The first of those principles is the exploitation of a captive audience in the classroom. That overrides everything." "Second, the classroom is a marketplace of ideas, not for someone's product. Students should not be used to build anyone's cost-per-thousand for the sale of advertising. They are not for sale at any price." Gary Marx, Associate Executive Director, American Association of School Administrators, "Channel One Commercials in the Classroom," School and College, Sept. 1989. He is explaining " certain ethical principles" that support the AASA's opposition to Channel One. "Underneath everything that we do is the concept of targeted, high-impact, proprietary media systems.... Home-based media has dramatically declined as an environment for sending advertising messages. Place-based (such as Channel One)... helps you target." Advertising entrepreneur Christopher Whittle, founder of Channel One, "Advertising Age" 1990 |