Firm seeks to beam ads and music to school buses
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | June 6, 2006
A Massachusetts company wants to beam commercial radio broadcasts into school buses every morning and afternoon, the latest mingling of education and commerce to spark outcry as the firm lobbies school districts across the state to sign contracts for the fall.
Needham-based Bus Radio said yesterday that it has signed up school systems with nearly 100,000 school children in Massachusetts and other states for the service next school year. The company says it is offering a cutting-edge service in which children select music online for their district's buses, drivers can finish their routes with their passengers quiet, and school districts get cash from the company. Bus Radio can sell advertising time to businesses trying to reach young consumers.
But critics say such arrangements exploit captive young ears already inundated by advertising pitches morning to night. Yesterday, one consumer group sent Governor Mitt Romney a letter urging him to prevent the company from working with Bay State districts, while activists flooded the state Education Department with protest e-mails.
``What these corporations want to do is be in children's faces 24 hours a day, and they're getting close to that," said Susan Linn, a psychologist at the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston.
Bus Radio would not disclose which school districts in Massachusetts or other states have signed up. Woburn school officials confirmed that they tried out the system last year and are considering allowing it in all buses next school year.
But Mansfield rejected the firm's $10,000 offer, after outraged parents sent e-mails and letters. ``It caused us to reexamine our engagement with Bus Radio," said Mansfield School Superintendent John A. Moretti. ``We decided it was just not worth it."
Bus Radio has also courted Boston schools, the largest district in the state, with more than 60,000 students. But a spokesman said school officials refuse on principle to allow advertising inside school buses.
The Bus Radio system would function somewhat like satellite radio, the firm's president, Steven Shulman, said yesterday. Free receivers installed on the buses would get daily feeds of pop music-oriented programming. Each hour would include 44 minutes of songs and disc-jockey banter, six minutes of safety announcements, eight minutes of advertising, plus two minutes of corporate-sponsored contests. How many ads a student hears would depend on the length of the bus ride.
A demonstration broadcast had an enthusiastic DJ soliciting requests by proclaiming, ``It's going to be your radio show!" Pop stars Pink and Beyoncé were featured, as was a $200 cash giveaway contest linked to the movie ``The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants."
Shulman said content would be limited to age-appropriate songs and advertisements that students and school administrators could control and can be modified for buses serving elementary, middle, and high school students. He said that pilot tests of the system indicated that students were quieter on the bus as they listened, resulting in safer drives. The Bus Radio programming often replaced the shows played on FM radios used by bus drivers, Shulman said.``There's no reason for a 12-year-old kid to be listening to Bacardi rum or Budweiser or Viagra commercials, but that's what's on the radio today," he said.
In exchange for contracting with Bus Radio, school districts get all the equipment, plus cash payments based on the size of the district and number of buses.
A letter from Woburn school officials praising the Bus Radio system is posted on the company's website.
``The bus drivers loved it, the ability to keep the kids quiet and in their seats," said Joseph Elia, director of finance for Woburn schools. He said administrators were untroubled by the ads or the music.
``We don't think its a major issues from the standpoint of content," he said.
But Commercial Alert, a consumer group based in Oregon that seeks to reduce advertising in the public sphere, said such an agreement would be disruptive and unfair for students.
``They would have no choice, and neither would their parents," said the group's letter to Romney yesterday. ``You would be intentionally interfering with the ability of students to read, pray, or do homework on the school bus."
State Education Department spokeswoman Heidi Perlman said the decision to contract with Bus Radio was up to individual school districts. She also reported that Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll yesterday had received hundreds of similarly worded e-mails rom around the country opposing Bus Radio.
Wakefield is another district that walked away from Bus Radio. Peter DeRoeve, assistant superintendent for personnel and finance, said signing with Bus Radio did not make financial sense.
``We only have five buses and about 500 to 600 bused students," he said. ``The answer we got [from Bus Radio] is that it didn't look like Wakefield could generate enough revenue to make it worthwhile for either of us."
Bus Radio has some experience marketing during school hours. In a previous venture, Shulman and a partner distributed millions of school book covers featuring ads from McDonald's, Nike, and other companies. Bus Radio also has similarities to Channel One, a for-profit television network with commercials that airs in thousands of US schools and has also drawn controversy.
Linn, author of the 2004 book ``Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood," said radio ads in buses cross the line. ``There needs to be commercial-free time in children's lives," she said. ``And the school bus ride is one of them."
