Spring/Summer 2000, Volume 5 Number 2

Table of Contents

Channel One

by Jim Metrock

Channel One is the most controversial show on TV.  You will never see it at home, however, it is only shown during school time.

Channel One’s deal is this:  A school will be loaned a satellite dish, two VCRs, and a 19” TV set in each classroom.  They will wire it into a network and the school can use the equipment any way it wants.   They will provide a daily 12-minute TV show that has some news stories and contains two minutes of commercials.  They also offer the Classroom Channel that provides documentary programming that is commercial-free.

All the school board has to do is to contractually agree to show the Channel One News show with the all-important commercials to the children at least 90% of all school days and in at least 80% of all classrooms.  In other words, Channel One claims one hour a week of school time as rent payment.

“RESOLVED, that the National Council of Teachers of English oppose intrusions of commercial television advertising, such as Channel One, in the classroom:”

NCTE resolution passed 1992.

When a school agrees to show Channel One, they make it part of the curriculum.  The commercials have the implicit endorsement of the school.  Some schools make the children close their books and turn their heads to the Channel One TV.  This is a true captive audience.

Principals don’t have a clue as to what his or her school will be pitching to students.  Channel One, alone, decides what they will advertise.  Here a few examples of Channel One ads: 

• sexually charged and violent movies (Bats, The Mummy, Never Been Kissed), a Clearasil commercial that shows a topless girl covering her breasts with her hands after losing her bikini top in the pool.  The last provocative scene: the bikini top floating away.  (Channel One routinely uses sex to sell to children.)

• Children are daily urged to eat more Snickers, Hostess cupcakes, Twix bars, and M&Ms and then to wash them down with a Mountain Dew, Mug Root Beer or Pepsi. It is important to advertise candy during school because teenagers drop by convenience stores right after school.

• Reebok commercials for shoes many children cannot afford.

The ads have power in a classroom.  Children see the same ads over and over.  The implied endorsement of teachers and the school give the ads more impact.

“Channel One is the best mechanism to reach groups of teens talking about hot new products.  Channel One helps to jumpstart our sales.”

George Harrison, VP of Marketing, Nintendo in a Channel One ad in Advertising Age, June 28, 1999

Adolescents face an obesity crisis and our schools, through Channel One, encourage our children to eat more candy and drink more soft drinks.  This insanity can be ended by teachers.

Teachers never brought Channel One into a classroom – school boards did.  Yet teachers have remained silent as local ragtag parent groups take on the issue of the commercialization of public schools.  Some teachers have even supported Channel One and their commercials.  I have heard “acceptable trade-off” far too many times.  When did it ever become acceptable to be selling children’s school time to the highest bidder?

When Channel One’s Madison Avenue executives hear “kids can make a difference” they are thinking, “They can sure make a difference … to our revenue stream.”  They view our children as a “target market” to be plundered.  In this struggle to get classrooms back to being a market place of ideas and not a market place for products, the one group that has remained silent must begin to stand up to the marketers. 

Once teachers find their voice, this exploitation of school children will end.

“Corporate involvement should not require students to observe, listen to, or read commercial advertising.  Selling or providing access to a captive audience in the classroom for commercial purposes is exploitation and a violation of the public trust.”

Policy position of the National Association of State Boards of Education, April 1999

Jim Metrock is president of Obligation, Inc. a Birmingham, AL-based child advocacy and media watchdog organization.  Named Child Advocate of 1999 by the Alabama Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics

© Copyright 1999, Kids Can Make A Difference