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TechnoratiChannel One even advertises PG-13 movies to pre-teens in middle school. For example, in a recent show, Channel One featured actress Rosario Dawson who was there to promote her movie Rent. Dawson claimed that the movie is entertaining for the whole family, but she did not mention that the R-rated movie dealt with topics such as homosexuality and AIDS, which might not be suitable for young audiences. 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 website 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. According to its website, by September 2006, BusRadio will be heard by 100,000 students between the ages of 6 and 18 on 850 school buses in Massachussetts. By 2007, BusRadio hopes to have a base of one million students.
Cover Concepts, the corporation that owns BusRadio, is a multi-million dollar enterprise that relies on advertising for profit. It presently reaches 43,000 schools and 30 million children by providing schools with free supplies, namely book covers but also stickers, posters, calendars, bookmarks and other materials. The catch is that each has an advertisement on it from various companies such as McDonald’s, Nike and Calvin Klein. Whereas in traditional print media a client gets a 4% to 5% brand recall, Cover Concepts advertisers get up to 74% at the end of the school year. For their free supplies, schools provide Cover Concepts with demographic data on students’ family incomes, gender, age and race. This means that Cover Concepts can target specific groups to meet the demands of its advertisers.
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.”
This article originally appeared on September 28, 2006.
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Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about the Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
