Channel One News was an American news

content provider A value-added service (VAS) is a popular telecommunications industry{{cite web, url=http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/11/prweb11284640.htm, title=Global Mobile Value Added Services (VAS) Market: Worldwide Industry Share, Investment Trends, Growth, ...

. The daily news program was accompanied by

commercial advertising A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

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 so ...

, 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 in the world. 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 (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Financial Dist ...

. 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 and 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; May 2, 1959) is an American actor. During the late 1960s through much of the 1970s, he was one of the most widely seen East Asian child actors working in U.S. television, appearing in various TV series a ...

. It was founded by Christopher Whittle along with co-founder Ed Winter, advertising and marketing executives based in

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Tennessee, Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Di ...

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 making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights o ...

, Cynthia Samuels, came to Channel One from 9 years on ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 A ...

''. While at Channel One, she created Student Producer Week—during which students produced, reported, directed, and designed an entire week of programming—Channel One's one-hour specials, including one in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

and

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, one in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

and

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, one in Los Angeles after the

Rodney King riots The 1992 Los Angeles riots, sometimes called the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and the Los Angeles Race Riots, were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, in April and May 1992. Unrest began in So ...

hosted by

Arsenio Hall Arsenio Hall (born February 12, 1956) is an American comedian, actor and talk show host. He hosted the 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 Alloy Entertainment (formerly Daniel Weiss Associates and 17th Street Productions) is a book packaging and television production unit of Warner Bros. Television Studios. It produces books, television series, and feature films. Alloy Entertainment ...

. In July 2007,

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...

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 service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 48 H ...

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

; 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, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

s, headend units, and

satellite receiver A satellite dish is a dish-shaped type of parabolic antenna designed to receive or transmit information by radio waves to or from a communication satellite. The term most commonly means a dish which receives direct-broadcast satellite television ...

s. 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 by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

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 who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

won the 1992 OneVote, garnering 43% of the vote.

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

got 27%, with independent

H. Ross Perot Henry Ross Perot (; June 27, 1930 – July 9, 2019) was an American business magnate, billionaire, politician and philanthropist. He was the founder and chief executive officer of Electronic Data Systems and Perot Systems. He ran an inde ...

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 who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

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 politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic Part ...

was voted second with 36% of the vote. 2004: The 2004 OneVote gave

55% of the vote.

John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party (Unite ...

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 politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms ...

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 served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

50 percent of the vote.

Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts f ...

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, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

47 percent of the vote.

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

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 an American professional association of pediatricians, headquartered in Itasca, Illinois. It maintains its Department of Federal Affairs office in Washington, D.C. Background The Academy was founded ...

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 process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

and PR tie-ins to promote products and services, arguing that it further corrupted the school setting with

consumerism Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the supp ...

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 ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄγ ...

s/correspondents on its roster. Here are some of those who rotated between 1993 and 2018. *

Serena Altschul Serena Altschul (born October 13, 1970) is an American broadcast journalist, known for her work at MTV News and CBS. Early life and education Altschul was born in New York City, a daughter of author and botanist Siri von Reis and Arthur Altsch ...

(correspondent for ''

CBS News Sunday Morning ''CBS News Sunday Morning'' (normally shortened to ''Sunday Morning'' on the program itself since 2009) is an American news magazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published ...

'') * Tony Anderson *

Errol Barnett Errol Barnett (born 3 April 1983) is a British-born American anchor and national correspondent for CBS News based in New York City after covering the Trump administration for three years while based in Washington D.C. Barnett also anchored '' ...

(anchor and correspondent for

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 from the Vanderbilt family. He is the primary anchor of the CNN news broadcast show ''Anderson Cooper 360°''. In addition to his duties at C ...

(anchor on

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

and talk show host) * Adriana Diaz *

Seth Doane Seth Doane (born June 26, 1978) is an American television journalist, working for CBS News. Career Doane is a Peabody Award winning CBS News reporter who was named correspondent for '' "60 in 6"'', the new ''60 Minutes'' streaming program. "Seth ...

(correspondent on

) * Julian Dujarric * Scott Evans (Reporter/Anchor at

Access Hollywood ''Access Hollywood'', formerly 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 created ...

) * Steven Fabian (correspondent on

Inside Edition ''Inside Edition'' is an American news broadcasting newsmagazine program that is distributed in first-run syndication by CBS Media Ventures. Having premiered on January 9, 1989, it is the longest-running syndicated-newsmagazine program that is no ...

) * Justin Finch ( Reporter/Anchor at

NBC Washington WRC-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Washington, D.C., airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned-and-operated station, owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Class A television se ...

) * Jared Friesen * Tom Hanson * Chris Haslage * Arielle Hixson * Shelby Holliday * Cassie Hudson * Craig Jackson (host of VH1's ''

I Love Money ''I Love Money'' is an American reality television series that aired on VH1 and 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 of Love'', ...

'') *

Brian Kilmeade Brian Kilmeade (born May 7, 1964) is an American television and radio presenter and political commentator for Fox News. On weekdays he co-hosts the morning show, ''Fox & Friends'', and he hosts the Fox News Radio program ''The Brian Kilmeade Sho ...

(co-host on

Fox News Channel The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

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 * Demetrius Pipkin * Emily Reppert * Maggie Rulli * Sofia Lidskog *

Lisa Ling Lisa J. Ling (born August 30, 1973) is an American journalist, television personality, and author. She is currently the host of '' This Is Life with Lisa Ling '' on CNN. Previously, she was a reporter on Channel One News, a co-host on the ABC da ...

(host of ''

Our America ''Our America'' is a film based on the book ''Our America: Life And Death on the South Side of Chicago''.Harvey, Denni ''Variety'', Jan. 16, 2002, retrieved 2008-07-10 It premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and aired on American televis ...

'' on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network and ''

This is Life with Lisa Ling ''This Is Life with Lisa Ling'' is a CNN original documentary television series produced by Brooklyn-based production company Part2 Pictures and American journalist Lisa Ling, who is also the show's host. The program was announced on April 14, 2 ...

'' on

) * Laura Ling (Director of Development for

Discovery Digital Networks Discovery Digital Networks was a San Francisco based multi-channel Internet television and digital cable network that created, produced and distributed streaming television shows on niche topics. It was sold by Discovery Communications into Group ...

) * Alex Marquardt (Correspondent on

) * Tonoccus McClain *

Maria Menounos Maria Menounos (, gr, Μαρία Μενούνος ; born June 8, 1978) is an American journalist, television presenter and actress. She has hosted ''Extra'' and ''E! News''; she was a TV correspondent for ''Today'', ''Access Hollywood'', and co- ...

(on ''

E! News ''E! News'', previously known as ''E! News Daily'' and ''E! News Live'', is the entertainment news operation for the cable network E! in the United States. Its former on-air weekday newscast debuted on September 1, 1991, and primarily reports ...

'') * Alexandra Montoya * Meka Nichols *

Monica Novotny Monica Novotny is a former news anchor for MSNBC. Early years Novotny earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mass communications from the University of California, Los Angeles graduating Phi Beta Kappa. Career Novotny joined MSNBC as an Internet report ...

(anchor on

MSNBC MSNBC (originally the Microsoft National Broadcasting Company) is an American news-based pay television cable channel. It is owned by NBCUniversala subsidiary of Comcast. Headquartered in New York City, it provides news coverage and political ...

) * 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 Para ...

'') * Michele Ruiz * Alex Sanz (U.S. News leadership team at

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

) * Tracy Smith (correspondent on ''

'') *

* Rawley Valverde * Justin Gunn

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