Forcing young kids to hear COMMERCIALS on School Buses???

[lostnfound]

Carrying the consumer grub role of the Merkun citizen to new extremes: a new alert from Commercial Alert says that BusRadio wants to have 1 million schoolkids next year become their captive audience to target kids as young as five with commerical messages. Insane.

Dear friends,

The Washington Post http://www.commercialalert.org/news/featured-in/2006/06/the-next-niche-school-bus-ads">reported yesterday that a new company, BusRadio, plans to put radios with advertising on school buses. Every hour of programming will contain 8 minutes of ads. The ads will even target children as young as five.

In September, BusRadio wants to run their first pilot project in Massachusetts. But they’re thinking big. In September 2007, they plan to compel 1 million children to listen to ads when they ride school buses.

There are two obvious problems with BusRadio.

* It is wrong to force captive audiences of children to listen to advertising.
* Schools shouldn’t discourage children from doing homework on school buses.

You can help us create a lot of static for Bus Radio. Let's stop the salesmen before they board the bus.

Sigma & Partners is providing the venture capital for BusRadio.

Click here to tell them that they shouldn’t fund BusRadio or any other project that forces schoolchildren to listen to advertising:

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/commercialalert/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=4002


Thank you for helping us keep children safe from commercial exploitation.

-- Gary Ruskin, Commercial Alert

[msongs]

1. some drivers play christians only radio stations or rush nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. We had a librarian who played christian music in the school library

I complained to the principal who told her to stop. That librarian never spoke to me again for the rest of that year.

Does that mean I am going to hell . . .

[Terran1212]

2. Link does not work nt

[lostnfound]

14. Sorry, it's fixed now. Thanks for telling me. nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Kids don't do homework on the bus

I agree this is a dumb plan but I don't at all agree with that talking point.

[Ariana Celeste]

18. I did

(But that was because I am a procrastinator who would often have "oh SHIT!" moments on the way to school...)

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. They don't today

Well maybe in a dream world. :)

[Waya]

4. Well, that constitues torture - or it should......

.....:puke:

[jumpoffdaplanet]

5. What radios on school buses

I've driven them for years and there were no radios.

It's not something you'd want a one of these buses. There's so much to pay attention to, and radio would be a distraction, and something some kids might destroy for fun.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. We have them on our buses

But most drivers turn them off when the kids are on the bus.

[Mythsaje]

16. It's been twenty years since I was in high school...

But we had radios on the buses back then. One bus-driver let us bring our own cassettes and we'd rock down the road listening to Journey or Van Halen or whatever all the way to school.

On another bus in a different district we'd cycle through various radio stations through the week. Some days it would've paid to have a walkman or MP3 player, but, of course, this was just after the tape walkmans came out, so only a few of them had them.

[sandnsea]

20. Thirty years for me

But we had music too, our own and I'm pretty sure the buses had radios too. My kids did in Montana too. Where'd you go to school??

[donco6]

8. I suppose some dumbass board of ed. out there might . . .

. . . think this is a good idea. I can't imagine anyone I know going for it. I know Cherry Creek school district has banner ads on their buses, but they're only "public service" type banners (antidrug, stay in school, Congrats Grads from merchants assoc., etc.) I don't know anyone else who even has that here in the Denver Metro area.

[Orsino]

9. If we won't fund our schools, the schools will look elsewhere...

...for funding. That includes exclusive soda contracts, corporate sponsorship, and advertising to a captive audience.

[onehandle]

12. Tax the Rich.

Tax the Fuck out of them.

[Orsino]

13. I dunno...that's a lotta fuck.

But amen!

[lostnfound]

15. That's right. The book "Born to Buy"

ran through many of those issues.

The priorities are so messed up..they can't afford seatbelts..

[onehandle]

10. Bad enough on regular buses.

They started this here in Atlanta a couple of years ago plus video screens. I make sure I have my iPod when ever I need a bus. Last time I rode, the sound was disabled. Hopefully they got enough complaints.

On school buses? Unacceptable. Parents need to kill this Now. When I was a kid, I studied on the school bus.

[kiahzero]

11. All the buses I rode on had radios

And commercial radio, IIRC, has more than 8 minutes / hour of commercials.

[Berry Cool]

17. It all started with Channel One. Free TV equipment for your school

if only you will force the kiddies to listen to this brief news broadcast every day...a news broadcast that just-so-happens to have ads on it for McDonald's, Kool-Aid, what have you.

Anderson Cooper began his career as a fact checker for Channel One.

[xmas74]

29. I remember watching him my senior year of high school

on Channel One. My school one a contest from there once-I believe he was one of the people who was supposed to present the award at my school.

By then I had graduated.

[pstokely]

44. They had Channel One in my middle school, I just napped during it

Don't know if they still show it there

[LWolf]

19. Many school districts "outsource" their busing

to bus companies. They wouldn't be making this decision, in that case. It would be the bus company.

It's not much different, imo, than allowing vending machines because of the $$ it produces, or to streaming channel one into classrooms. Bus drivers I've known usually play local radio stations that the kids like, or CDs.

[pstokely]

45. School districts have contracts will the bus companies

They might have some control over this

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

21. Maybe I Have Faulty Perception But I Really Don't Have A Problem With This

Chilldren are one of the absolute biggest target markets there is. Marketing products to them is a no brainer in my opinion. And 8 minutes of every hour is a hell of a lot less than they're subjected to in a normal ride in anyone's car.

[lostnfound]

24. Think "Channel One" --

There's something called "Channel One" which is a way for advertisers to target the captive audience in classrooms. It's TV screens which are offered free to schools that agree to ensure that kids are present and watching them for so many minutes per day. Among other things, they have ads encouraging kids to join the Army. This is taking up school time.

Textbooks are a new target for advertisers. Once free of ads, they now include advertisements as well as corporate-produced, industry-specific content. Environmental science brought to you by...Exxon? Parents are blamed and/or counselled for not monitoring their children's TV habits, yet who will oversee the content of radio on the schoolbus?

One question that might be asked is, "What self-concept is being developed through everpresent advertising?"

At a deeper level, exposure to a variety of experiences is part of child development. The social environments of the classroom, church (if applicable), the home, the schoolbus, the baseball field, the park are unique. The inner life being developed in their young minds requires time, and much of that time is now soaked up by everpresent advertising. I took my son on a school field trip at an arena; there were electronic billboards surrounding us advertising ExxonMobil and Halliburton .. I'm not kidding. Each gate was also advertising a different company.

It's true for adults as well -- elevator ads, billboards, TV, radio -- but for developing minds, it's much more important because it's laying the foundation or the outline structure of the brain -- of the concepts of what is possible and what is not.

What is being sold when advertisers buy time through these media? Our children's eyeballs, ears, minds.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

28. I Appreciate The Well Put Post, But Like I Said, I Have No Problem With It

There's so much for me to worry about out there I just find it really hard to care about this at all. Just doesn't really bother me.

[Orsino]

30. The kids have to be there.

They are a captive audience, and should not be subjected to more advertising.

If the purpose of the ads is to help pay for the schools, why not cut out the middleman? Fund education. Don't let the scholastic experience be shaped any further by corporations.

Don't make the kids pay for our failure to act.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

31. Oh For Christ's Sake, It's Just Commercials.

8 minutes an hour? Big friggin deal! On regular radio stations it is probably 25 minutes of commercials at least every single hour. It's just commercials. It's not like they're being forced to listen to like Coulter's new book on audio tape or something. I just don't get the outrage on this. It is so not a big deal to me or something I consider worthy of outrage or energy, but to each their own.

[pstokely]

47. It's forced brainwashing, kids already get too much of that

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

49. I Consider That Statement To Be Beyond Extreme.

[Ariana Celeste]

32. Oh God... Channel One..

Fortunately, I was only put through that for one year. While it was cool that the channel gives info to kids (kind of...) on what's going on in the world, we also had to sit through commercial after commercial- the one that I remember most clearly was the Anti- Marijuana one, where it tells us kids that whenever we buy pot we are funding terrorism. Which we would see every time.

[pstokely]

46. I don't have a problem with neighborhood businesses placing ads during

athletic events (as long as the ads are removed during school hours)

[Book Lover]

39. It is 8 minutes more than my child is exposed to in my car (nm)

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

41. Yay For You. Here's A Scooby Snack.

That is an exception. As far as majority goes, most kids are subjected to commercials non stop in the car, and on tv, etc. So my point still stands.

[U4ikLefty]

48. Just cause YOU don't care what your kid is exposed to, doesn't mean

that other parents aren't concerned. The students are compelled to ride the bus (or walk miles to school) and should not be forced to engage in consumer activity.

...how about this for a solution? No radio, video of any kind that is piped into the bus. Let the kids have their own time to think about the day.

[lostnfound]

42. Mine too. It's Pacifica or nothing for me...

and usually, with my son in the car, it's nothing, because I don't want him hearing about the god-awful news from Iraq, either.

[eppur_se_muova]

23. A few pencils through the speaker grilles will fix that. And well deserved

too. I was never a fan of radio, never listened to anything that played on it. I don't understand why people want that mindless racket going all the time.

"Do you detest silence?" "Adam", on Northern Exposure

[lildreamer316]

25. Man; I am quickly reaching full saturation on this crap.

The corporations just won't quit. They won't leave us alone. It's quickly reaching the point where they will be in every minuite of our lives. Something has got to give; I just don't know what.

[johnnie]

26. I see nothing wrong with it

Sure ads suck, but this is nothing new really. I remember watching Saturday morning cartoons and we were bombarded with ads, and I still didn't get everything I wanted. :)

I think if the revenue can help pay for schoolbooks and other supplies to help the children, then it's a good thing. Especially in a lot of inner city school systems, it would be great to give them the same benefits that the children from more affluent neighborhood are getting.

[lostnfound]

27. That's what I used to think... But how much time is too much?

Parents and teachers compete for children's time, attention, loyalty, values with the entertainment and advertising industries.

Will we pick up our children at General Electric High School, drive on the CocaCola Toll Road to watch baseball in the BankofAmerica stadium near the Halliburton National Monument, wait with them in (intentionally) slow lines surrounded by electronic ad displays..

School bus time isn't exactly sacred. But the goal of the advertising industry is to captivate every available moment to sell the eyeballs and ears of the public for the sake of increasing consumption.

The memory of silence and the concept of a public sector are being lost.

[kwolf68]

33. Corporate propaganda

If the only way we can provide kids with books or equitable chances at a good education is to allow corporate propaganda to be pushed on them we are in a hell of a lot more trouble than I thought.

[johnnie]

35. As I said, it has been a round for a long time

They used to distribute book covers and folders when I was in High School with ads on them and that was the late 70s early 80s.

[Bake]

34. Get your kid an MP3 player.

That way they can't hear the commercials. It doesn't have to be an expensive one.

Unless they've also decided to ban personal music devices.

Bake

[bobbieinok]

36. there was a sci-fi story/book years ago about commercials on clouds

there was no way anyone could avoid seeing them

[eppur_se_muova]

43. A recurring theme in SF--ads get more and more intrusive.

Almost any SF set in the near future mentions interactive holographic ads that "accost" anyone in the vicinity...

[Ilsa]

37. This needs to be turned into a safety issue so the whole

plan will be dumped. I hate how we've sold out education, and I thought we were makign progress with getting soda pop out of the schools, but it's only been replaced with bottled water and juices.

[ComerPerro]

38. This is part of the reason Republicans cut education funding all the time

So corporations can come in with funding and train kids to be consumers

[Book Lover]

40. As usual, Futurama sums the irony and pathos up best

Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?

Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.