Channel One News began its pilot phase in January 1989, originally as a production of Whittle Communications, Inc., in Knoxville, Tennessee, and was heavily promoted by the company’s founder, Christopher Whittle. In 1995 Whittle Communications closed and sold Channel One to K-III Communications Corporation, a large diversified communications company focused on education, information, and magazine publishing. K-III Communications is now PRIMEDIA, Inc., a $1.6 billion corporation currently trading on the New York Stock Exchange as PRM. On its corporate website, PRIMEDIA proclaims it is the “#1 special interest magazine publisher in the U.S., with 250 titles such as Automobile, Motor Trend, New York, Fly Fisherman, American Baby, Telephony and American Demographics; the #1 producer and distributor of specialty video with 18 satellite and digital video product lines, including Channel One Network.”

In order for a school to receive Channel One News, it must sign a three-year agreement to carry the program in its entirety each school day and make the telecast available to at least 90 percent of the student body. In return, each school receives a satellite dish (TVRO), two videocassette recorders, one 19-inch television set per classroom, and all of the necessary cabling. No money is exchanged. In a recent enhancement, the school will also have access to more than 100 hours of curriculum-specific, satellite-delivered programming.

Channel One News content is geared to teenagers and delivered by anchors and reporters typically in their early to mid-20s. Program content includes the latest news as well as weeklong series for more depth on such topics as jobs, drug abuse, science and technology, and international politics. According to Channel One News, its news programming has “five educational goals”: to enhance cultural literacy,

1. to promote critical thinking,

2. to provide a common language and shared experience,

3. to provide relevance and motivation, and

4. to strengthen character and build a sense of responsibility.

Channel One News has received many awards, including the Advertising Council’s Silver Bell Award for “outstanding public service” and a George Foster Peabody Award for the series A Decade of AIDS.

In addition to the daily news program, schools are also provided approximately 250 hours per school year of noncommercial educational programming (through an agreement with Pacific Mountain Network) designed to serve as a supplemental teaching tool to support existing curricula.

Many in the educational community and elsewhere have decried Channel One News on the basis that it commercializes the classroom environment, and some have expressed concern that there may be an implicit endorsement of the products shown. Channel One News characterizes its role as a positive partnership between the educational and business communities. It cites, for example, a three-year study of Channel One News by a team, commissioned by Whittle, from the University of Michigan. Among the study’s findings were apparent increases in awareness and knowledge of current events by the audience and the judgment by a majority of teachers surveyed that they would recommend the program to other teachers. Other studies have found that Channel One News’ stated commitment to community service is evidenced by a high per-centage (about 15 percent) of the commercial time being given to public service announcements. And in a 1993 report published in Educational Leadership, 90 percent of teachers thought Channel One News included the “most important events of the previous day.” Other teachers, critics, and evaluators, however, still find the idea of students viewing advertising in the classroom anathema. The debate continues.