What could be more captive than a bunch of kids riding to school on a school bus? Now you know everything you need to know about BusRadio's brave new business plan.
From Commercial Alert:
BusRadio boasts that it will "take targeted student marketing to the next level," and that it gives advertisers “a unique and effective way to reach the highly sought after teen and tween market”
The ads will even target elementary school children as young as six.
Other districts are tuning in to BusRadio because it "helps keep the kids distracted".
Right.
Before someone comes up with the brilliant idea to bring BusRadio to the High Country, let's tune in to hear what some of the folks who already have it seem to think:
“I didn’t have a big concern until I heard everything that’s going on, so I guess it’s more the advertising, and what they’re trying to sell my daughter,” said Johnitha Pugh, another concerned parent. -- Central Florida NewsBus Radio’s push into the Valley comes at a time of increasing concern nationwide that young people are harmed by constant bombardment from advertisers.
Its practice of selling kids-only audiences to advertisers is “nothing that school boards should be enabling or collaborating with,” said Robert Weissman, a spokesman for Commercial Alert, a consumer-advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.
The Mansfield School District board in Massachusetts in June 2006 rescinded a vote to contract with Bus Radio after parents complained about the advertising. -- Fresno Bee
A second school bus driver has come forward with concerns about Bus Radio, the new music programming service being adopted by local school districts.
Driver Les Lilly said the way the service was installed caused intercom failures and other malfunctions on buses in the Douglas County School District in August. The district has installed Bus Radio on 186 of its 277 buses.
“The PA systems weren’t working right, and that’s the most vital tool you have as a driver,” Lilly said. -- Rocky Mountain News
A bus driver for Littleton Public Schools wants parents to have more say over a new radio service featuring songs that he says encourage immoral behavior.
“Nobody can hear it but the driver and the kids,” said Dan Kenny about Bus Radio, which was installed on some Littleton buses about six weeks ago. “They played Stronger by Kanye West, and I was thinking this is not an appropriate song for kindergartners or fifth-graders.”
Although Bus Radio carried a “clean” version of Stronger, Kenny said it was still easy to determine which profane words were being disguised. He also objected to Timbaland’s The Way I Are, which refers to stripping. -- Rocky Mountain News
In my straitlaced world view, a Berlin wall should separate the schoolhouse from the marketplace. Kids deserve a safe harbor from the bombardment of sales pitches on TV, billboards, radio and the Internet...
Even so, I was surprised to learn in the same news story that BusRadio had been installed in San Marcos school buses without full public debate. No other district in the county has signed on with the Massachusetts-based company, which is something of a lightning rod.
In its three-year history, BusRadio has grown rapidly. According to a company spokesman, BusRadio is piped into 10,000 buses. -- San Diego Union Tribune
You get the idea. You can find all of the articles about BusRadio here on Commercial Alert's website.
We're SO proud of Junior--he's becoming quite the little commodity.
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