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# GUEST COMMENTARY BY JOHN W. WHITEHEAD Now we’re advertising our children to death
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/guest-commentary-by-john-w-whitehead-now-were-advertising-our-children-to-death/
- Published: 2006-11-07T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T01:14:14.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He*

Advertising has become a key defining characteristic of contemporary society. It’s everywhere. Schools used to be one of the few places that weren’t bombarded by advertisers. But even that is changing with the introduction of Channel One and BusRadio.

Channel One is a “news” show shown to millions of students in middle and high school. However, Channel One, as critics argue, is less of a news program and more of an entertainment program that coerces unsuspecting young people. The counterpart to Channel One is BusRadio, which supposedly allows children to enjoy the benefits of radio as they travel to and from school on a bus. While BusRadio executives concede that the show is geared toward entertaining the students, it supposedly incorporates educational content and safety awareness messages.

But many critics think that, like Channel One, this is just another ploy by the corporate giants to tap into the teenager consumer market. Introduced in 1990, Channel One is a news program of sorts that shows 12 minutes of programming to more than 12,000 schools across the country. The program is sent via satellite early in the morning, where it is taped and then shown to children at the school’s discretion. Proponents of Channel One argue that it provides students in impoverished areas with access to better technology that will facilitate the “learning process.” Critics, however, accuse Channel One of being more harmful than helpful through its discreet and indiscreet forms of advertising. Indeed, in his comprehensive analysis of Channel One, Professor William Hoynes reveals that only slightly more than half of Channel One’s air time is devoted to news content.

Features and profiles not related to breaking news events constitute 57 percent of news time, meaning that after sports, weather, and plane or train crashes are subtracted, the figure is around 20 percent. The remainder of the show is made up of ads, a “Pop Quiz” section, contests and activities and the music and banter that serve as filler. This means that in the course of a school year, students spend the equivalent of six school days watching Channel One, with another day lost to the commercial breaks that occur during every show.

Not surprisingly, numerous national educational groups oppose Channel One, including the National Parent Teacher Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the National School Boards Association and the National Education Association. BusRadio is a new radio show that will begin in the fall of 2006\. Unlike Channel One which claims to be educational, BusRadio’s web site clearly states that while “kids across the country will be listening to the dynamic programming of BusRadio,” advertisers will have a “unique and effective way to reach the highly sought after teen and tween market.” BusRadio plays music, public-service announcements, contests and ads — all aimed at kids. For each hour of programming, 44 minutes will be set aside for music, six for public-service announcements, two for contests and eight for advertising.

The bombarding of our young people by corporate America is not healthy. Gary Ruskin is concerned that the companies are using “the compulsory education law to compel kids to listen to ads.” BusRadio claims that it aids in making kids quieter and more well-behaved on buses. But Ruskin says, “So what? They’d be quiet if we gave them cigarettes, but that doesn’t mean we should.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 7, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/110706.pdf?ref=smdp.com)