Bus Radio taking over the airwaves

The marketing "brilliance" of Channel 1 is no longer reserved for classrooms, but now the company Bus Radio has taken the "captive audience" scheme to school buses. In exchange for providing buses with radio equipment (including GPS for emergencies), every hour of programmed music (primarily pop and r&b) contains eight minutes of advertising and two minutes of sponsored contests.

Bus Radio describes themselves saying,

“Every morning and every afternoon on their way to and from school, kids across the country will be listening to the dynamic programming of BusRadio providing advertiser’s with a unique and effective way to reach the highly sought after teen and tween market.”

According to their website, they “will take targeted student marketing to the next level.”

Comments from WFMU's Beware of the Blog said the following:

I've been to the website and I've heard the media clips. They are playing music that is cleaner than regular radio and they still have fewer commercials than regular radio. Who cares if the kids are seeing commercials? You can't turn on Saturday Morning cartoons without being bombarded. I think it's a better alternative and my kids love what they've heard so far. I just don't see what the big deal is.
Posted by: Sarah W. | December 14, 2006 at 04:18 PM

The big deal is that this amounts to compulsoary commercials that children cannot avoid (similar to channel one). In your home you control whether your children are or are not advertised to... that is a *CHOICE*. I've seen the promotional materials that channel one uses to attract advertisers and the pitch goes something like "Johnny doesnt like watching tv anymore and when he does he skips the commercials. He's on the internet and out w/ his friends so how can you guarantee he'll see your message? At school!" Perhaps the culture of "Urban Span"/"Ad Creep" has gotten to the point where people dont see this sort of thing as a problem but one would hope there are still at least a few lines that shouldnt be crossed when it comes to advertising and I would argue that mandatory viewing/listening of advertising at or on the way to school would fall into that category.
Posted by: doron | January 01, 2007 at 08:53 AM

While some don't really see it as a big deal, others are up in arms. Unlike the comment above, some citizens, like those at Obligation, Inc., are very concerned over radio content including song lyrics, band personas, "news" content, and so forth.

Yet others are concerned that kids have no commercial-free zones left. Bob Hill of the Louisville Courier-Journal says (with more than a little sarcasm),

It’s a grave national crisis. Our children can see and hear commercials aimed at them before school, after school and during school. Saturday mornings are a special treat for our little consumers with 30-minute commercials disguised as entertainment.

Weekday afternoons and evenings children again are massaged with television and computer advertising. Yet there it was—that yawning, school-bus electronic chasm when young people without access to proper ear gear could be denied eight minutes of commercials per hour. All they would be left with were themselves, possibly opportunities for wider friendship, shared experiences and frank discussion.

Disgusting.

In response to the rise of advertising to children, 40 organizations and 64 children’s advocates jointly endorsed letters to the 100 leading national advertisers and the top 50 advertising agencies, asking that they commit themselves not to advertise with either Bus Radio or Channel One. To read the letter in its entirety as well as read the list of signees, click here.

If you are interested in TAKING ACTION, Commercial Alert offers the opportunity for you to email top officials in a number of large corporations, requesting that they stop advertising with Bus Radio and Channel One. There are also a number of additional activism options available through CCFC.