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Channel One News was an American news
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. The daily news program was accompanied by
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for
marketing in schools Marketing in schools is a widespread phenomenon in which schools sign contracts allowing certain businesses to conduct marketing activities in school facilities — primarily advertising. For example, a school might allow only one brand of soft ...
, with supplementary educational resources. The Peabody award-winning Channel One News program was broadcast mainly to minors, advertising a way for young teens to understand happenings worldwide. Susan Winston (former executive producer of ''Good Morning America'') and Daniel Funk were brought in to design the broadcast and produce the six weeks of test shows. On May 13, 2014, it was sold for an undisclosed price to
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company ( ; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, and reference works. The company is based in the Financial District, Boston, Boston Financial District. It was fo ...
. On June 28, 2018, HMH announced that Channel One's last broadcast occurred in May and that they would be "winding down ongoing operations".


History

Channel One was founded in 1989. It began with a pilot program in four high schools before its national rollout in 1990, with original anchors and reporters Ken Rogers, Lynne Blades, and
Brian Tochi Brian Tochi (born Brian Keith Tochihara) is an American actor. During the late 1960s through much of the 1970s and 1980s, he was one of the most widely seen East Asian child actors working in U.S. television, appearing in various TV series and ...
. Christopher Whittle founded it along with co-founder Ed Winter, advertising and marketing executives based in
Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the Tennessee River and had a population of 190,740 at the 2020 United States census. It is the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division ...
.
Primedia Primedia is a South African media group, headquartered in Sandton, Johannesburg. History Primedia was established in 1994 and its listing on the JSE Securities Exchange was completed in April 1995. Primedia remained listed on the JSE until 1 O ...
purchased Channel One for approximately $250 million from Whittle in 1994, with Ed Winter remaining as chairman for several more years. The program's first
executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the production of media. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights or royalties). In film ...
, Cynthia Samuels, came to Channel One from 9 years on ''
Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * The current day and calendar date ** Today is between and , subject to the local time zone * Now, the time that is perceived directly, present * The current, present era Arts, entertainment and m ...
''. While at Channel One, she created Student Producer Week (in which students produced, reported, directed, and designed an entire week of programming), Channel One's one-hour specials (including one in
Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
and
Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
, one in
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and
Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
, one in Los Angeles after the
Rodney King riots The 1992 Los Angeles riots were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, United States, during April and May 1992. Unrest began in South Los Angeles, South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after ...
hosted by
Arsenio Hall Arsenio Hall (born February 12, 1956) is an American comedian, actor and talk show host. He hosted a late-night talk show, '' The Arsenio Hall Show'', from 1989 until 1994, and again from 2013 to 2014. He has appeared in ''Martial Law'', '' Comi ...
) and OneVote (an "election night" for students to vote for president and watch the returns come in live from their classrooms). After Cynthia Samuels came Douglas Greenlaw, former president of MTV, followed by David Neuman, former vice president of comedy at NBC. From 1997 until 2000, Andy Hill was president of programming for Channel One News, where he produced award-winning news programming for an audience of eight million American teens. In December 2007, Channel One's parent company, Primedia, classified its Education Segment, which includes Channel One Network, as a "discontinued operation" and announced that it was "exploring strategic alternatives for" the businesses in that segment. In 2007, Primedia sold Channel One to Alloy Media. In July 2007,
NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...
announced that it would be partnering with Alloy under an arrangement in which NBC would work with Channel One News to produce original content for Channel One's in-school broadcasts, providing Channel One with access to global news gathering resources. In 2009,
CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. It is headquartered in New York City. CBS News television programs include ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs ''CBS News Sunday Morn ...
entered into a partnership with Channel One. Alloy was bought by ZelnickMedia in 2010. On May 13, 2014, Channel One was acquired by the educational publisher
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company ( ; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, and reference works. The company is based in the Financial District, Boston, Boston Financial District. It was fo ...
; the company stated that the purchase would foster the "continued development of high-quality digital content for students, teachers, and parents across multiple modalities, and will bring significant video and cross-media production capabilities in-house."


Business model

The original model for Channel One had it providing schools and school districts with
television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
s, headend units, and satellite receivers. Schools would record the broadcast and transmit it into classrooms. Ads were displayed during the broadcast to cover the costs of the equipment. Starting in 1989, schools began to accept two minutes of advertisement. In 2011, the network began offering a subscription fee to receive an ad-free version of its transmissions.


OneVote

Channel One held mock presidential
election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...
s called OneVote shortly before the general elections in 1992, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016. With the exception of the 2016 election, the popular vote winner in each OneVote election accurately predicted the electoral college winner of the respective real presidential election. 1992: The initial vote in 1992 had 3,400,000 participants.
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...
won the 1992 OneVote, garnering 43% of the vote.
George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushBefore the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election, he was usually referred to simply as "George Bush" but became more commonly known as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush Senior," "Bush 41," and even "Bush th ...
got 27%, with independent
H. Ross Perot H is the eighth letter of the Latin alphabet. H may also refer to: Musical symbols * H number, Harry Halbreich reference mechanism for music by Honegger and Martinů * H, B (musical note) * H, B major People * H. (noble) (died after 12 ...
getting 24% of the vote. 2000: When OneVote returned in 2000, 877,497 students participated, choosing Texas Governor
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...
in a mock election with nearly 59% of the vote. Vice-president
Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American former politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He previously served as ...
was voted second with 36% of the vote. 2004: The 2004 OneVote gave
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...
55% of the vote.
John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who served as the 68th United States secretary of state from 2013 to 2017 in the Presidency of Barack Obama#Administration, administration of Barac ...
finished second with 40% of the vote, while all third-party candidates as a group (voters could only vote for them as a group) got 5%. The vote consisted of 1,400,000 students. 2008: The 2008 OneVote gave Barack Obama 51.5 percent of the vote.
John McCain John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American statesman and United States Navy, naval officer who represented the Arizona, state of Arizona in United States Congress, Congress for over 35 years, first as ...
finished second with 48.5 percent. 2012: The 2012 OneVote gave
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
50 percent of the vote.
Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and retired politician. He served as a United States Senate, United States senator from Utah from 2019 to 2025 and as the 70th governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 ...
finished second with 44 percent. 2016: The 2016 OneVote gave
Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...
47 percent of the vote.
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
finished second with 41 percent.


Controversy

Channel One was controversial largely because of the commercial content of the show. Critics claimed that it was a problem in classrooms because it forced children to watch ads and wasted class time and tax dollars. Supporters argued that the ads were necessary to help keep the program running and lease TVs, VCRs, and satellite dishes to schools, as well as commercial-free educational video through Channel One Connection. In 2006, the
American Academy of Pediatrics The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is the largest professional association of pediatricians in the United States. It is headquartered in Itasca, Illinois, and maintains an office in Washington, D.C. The AAP has published hundreds of poli ...
reported that research indicated that children who watched Channel One remembered the commercials more than they remembered the news. Another criticism, noted by Media Education Foundation's documentary ''Captive Audience'', was that very little time was dedicated to actual news and that the majority of the programming was corporate
marketing Marketing is the act of acquiring, satisfying and retaining customers. It is one of the primary components of Business administration, business management and commerce. Marketing is usually conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or ma ...
and PR tie-ins to promote products and services, arguing that it further corrupted the school setting with
consumerism Consumerism is a socio-cultural and economic phenomenon that is typical of industrialized societies. It is characterized by the continuous acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing quantities. In contemporary consumer society, the ...
.


Former anchors

Channel One News had seven
anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ', which itself comes from the Greek (). Anch ...
s/correspondents on its roster. Here are some of those who rotated between 1993 and 2018. * Serena Altschul (correspondent for ''
CBS News Sunday Morning ''CBS News Sunday Morning'' (frequently shortened to ''Sunday Morning'') is an American television newsmagazine that has aired on CBS since January 28, 1979. Created by Robert Northshield and E.S. "Bud" Lamoreaux III, and originally hosted by ...
'') * Tony Anderson *
Errol Barnett Errol Barnett (born 3 April 1983) is a broadcaster on American television. He is an anchor and national correspondent for CBS News based in New York City. He anchors the ''CBS Morning News'' solo''.'' Previously he covered the Trump administra ...
(anchor and correspondent for
CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. It is headquartered in New York City. CBS News television programs include ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs ''CBS News Sunday Morn ...
and its streaming channel) * Chris Browne * Mark Carter * Azia Celestino * Janet Choi *
Gotham Chopra Gotham Chopra (born Gautam Chopra on February 23, 1975) is an American sports documentarian, media entrepreneur, producer, podcast host, director, journalist, and author. He is a co-founder of Religion of Sports, Liquid Comics, Chopra Media, and ...
*
Anderson Cooper Anderson Hays Cooper (born June 3, 1967) is an American broadcast journalist and political commentator who anchors the CNN news broadcast show ''Anderson Cooper 360°''. In addition to his duties at CNN, Cooper serves as a correspondent for ''6 ...
(anchor on
CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
and talk show host) * Adriana Diaz * Seth Doane (correspondent on
CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. It is headquartered in New York City. CBS News television programs include ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs ''CBS News Sunday Morn ...
) * Julian Dujarric * Scott Evans (reporter/anchor at
Access Hollywood ''Access Hollywood'', briefly known as ''Access'' from 2017 to 2019, is an American weekday television entertainment news program that premiered on September 9, 1996. It covers events and celebrities in the entertainment industry. It was create ...
) * Steven Fabian (correspondent on
Inside Edition ''Inside Edition'' is an American tabloid television program that is distributed in Broadcast syndication, first-run syndication by CBS Media Ventures. Having premiered on January 9, 1989, it is the longest-running syndicated-newsmagazine progr ...
) * Justin Finch (reporter/anchor at NBC Washington) * Jared Friesen * Tom Hanson * Chris Haslage * Arielle Hixson * Shelby Holliday * Cassie Hudson * Craig Jackson (host of
VH1 VH1 (originally an initialism for Video Hits One) is an American basic cable television network that launched on January 1, 1985, and is currently owned by the MTV Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global's networks division based in New Y ...
's ''
I Love Money ''I Love Money'' is an American reality television series broadcast by VH1. The series was produced by 51 Minds Entertainment, a subsidiary of Endemol, and was a spin-off of '' Flavor of Love'', '' Charm School'', ''I Love New York'', '' Rock ...
'') * Brian Kilmeade (co-host on
Fox News Channel The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American multinational conservative news and political commentary television channel and website based in New York City, U.S. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is ow ...
and host on
Fox News Radio Fox News Radio is an American radio network owned by Fox News. It is syndicated to over 500 AM and FM radio stations across the United States. It also supplies programming for three channels on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. History In 2003, ...
) * Keith Kocinski * Kathy Kroenenberger * Jessica Kumari * Hicks Neal * Ron Mervine *Lee Thomas * Demetrius Pipkin * Emily Reppert * Maggie Rulli * Sofia Lidskog *
Lisa Ling Lisa J. Ling (born August 30, 1973) is an American journalist and television personality. She is a news contributor for CBS News. Previously, she was the host for ''This Is Life with Lisa Ling '' on CNN, a reporter on Channel One News, a co-host ...
(host of '' Our America'' on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network and '' This is Life with Lisa Ling'' on
CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
) *
Laura Ling Laura Ling (born December 1, 1976) is an American journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called jou ...
(Director of Development for Discovery Digital Networks) * Alex Marquardt (correspondent on
CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
) * Tonoccus McClain *
Maria Menounos Maria Menounos ( ; ; born June 8, 1978) is an American and Greek television host. She has hosted ''Extra'' and ''E! News''; she was a TV correspondent for '' Today'', ''Access Hollywood'', and co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 in Athen ...
(host on ''
E! News ''E! News'', previously known as ''E! News Daily'' and ''E! News Live'', is the infotainment, entertainment news operation for the cable network E! in the United States. Its former on-air weekday newscast debuted on September 1, 1991, and prima ...
'') * Alexandra Montoya * Meka Nichols * Monica Novotny (anchor on
MSNBC MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...
) * Kris Osborn (correspondent for ''
Entertainment Tonight ''Entertainment Tonight'' (or simply ''ET'') is an American Broadcast syndication, first-run syndicated news broadcasting news magazine, newsmagazine program that is distributed by CBS Media Ventures throughout the United States and owned by Par ...
'') * Michele Ruiz * Alex Sanz (U.S. News leadership team at
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
) * Derrick Shore (host of ''Houston Life'' on
KPRC-TV KPRC-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Graham Media Group. Its studios are located on Southwest Freeway (I-69/ US 59) in the Southwest Management District (formerly Greate ...
) * Tracy Smith (correspondent on ''
CBS News Sunday Morning ''CBS News Sunday Morning'' (frequently shortened to ''Sunday Morning'') is an American television newsmagazine that has aired on CBS since January 28, 1979. Created by Robert Northshield and E.S. "Bud" Lamoreaux III, and originally hosted by ...
'') *
Brian Tochi Brian Tochi (born Brian Keith Tochihara) is an American actor. During the late 1960s through much of the 1970s and 1980s, he was one of the most widely seen East Asian child actors working in U.S. television, appearing in various TV series and ...
* Rawley Valverde * Justin Gunn


See also

*
BusRadio BusRadio was an American company established in 2004, with the goal of providing several services to school buses, their drivers and passengers. It was envisioned that the service would transmit music, original programming, public service announ ...
* Cable in the Classroom


References


External links

* {{authority control American educational television series 1989 American television series debuts 1990s American television news shows 2000s American television news shows 2010s American television news shows 2018 American television series endings Peabody Award winners