FIRST OFF . . .

Channel One, the daily news show launched this week in six public schools amid controversy that it takes commercials into the classroom, has pulled an ad that Detroit school officials found sexually suggestive. The 30-second Levi’s ad has aired on commercial television and is a montage of young people . . . a boys’ choir, several youngsters dancing and a romantic couple walking away together. An official at Whittle Communications, the Knoxville, Tenn.-based media concern that developed Channel One, has assured the principal at Mumford High School in Detroit (itself well-known for a T-shirt sported by Eddie Murphy in “Beverly Hills Cop”) that the ad would not be repeated. Levi Strauss is one of eight advertisers signed up for the test. Whittle has given each school $50,000-worth of television sets, video recording equipment and a satellite dish to receive the 12-minute news program each day. Each show contains up to two minutes of advertising. Gahr High School in Cerritos is one of the schools receiving Channel One. Though various groups, including the National Parent-Teacher Assn. and the National Assn. of Secondary School Principals, have called the commercials an unwarranted intrusion by business into the schools, students and teachers who have seen the program so far this week have expressed few reservations about the ads and have generally liked a news show targeted to teens.