That was a long time ago. Since then, the station was sold and then resold. It's now owned by Fox, and they left Secaucus 8 years ago. They consolidated their offices in Manhattan with co-owned WNYW TV. Once again leaving NJ without a broadcast TV station.
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NJ PBS set to shut down in July 2026
- Thread starter Theater of My Mind
- Start date
That was a long time ago. Since then, the station was sold and then resold. It's now owned by Fox, and they left Secaucus 8 years ago. They consolidated their offices in Manhattan with co-owned WNYW TV. Once again leaving NJ without a broadcast TV station.
I knew they moved studios back to NYC, but aren't they still licensed to NJ??? I thought they were.
They still have a certain amount of New Jersey-specific branding:
MY9NJ | Local News, Weather, and Live Streams | WWOR
It's not written in stone that a TV station has to have its studios or transmitter in the state where its COL is located, nor in the state which it serves. WTVW/WEHT Evansville has its studios in Henderson KY, and WQCW, licensed to Portsmouth OH, has its studios in Huntington WV and its transmitter on Barkers Ridge a few miles away. Legally speaking, though, WQCW is an Ohio station, and there is ample coverage of southeastern Ohio news (in tandem with co-owned WSAZ).
Long before 1986, WOR-TV's former tower in New Jersey is a fascinating piece of broadcast history. It was located in the middle of a densely populated residential neighborhood and during the winter, ice would fall off of it, crashing into cars parked on the residential streets below it. Then one day, a plane collided with the tower leaving the top of it dangling precariously over homes while the plane barreled into an apartment building, killing some of the residents.
I believe this led to the FCC banning broadcast towers in residential areas following that.
They make some effort to produce New Jersey-specific content, perhaps not as much as one might like, but it's something at least:
Update New Jersey
But when all is said and done, how many people in New Jersey would actually favor a nightly newscast, at the dinner hour or 11 pm, from Newark or Jersey City over the main NYC news shows, on a diginet-fed station on top of that? Sad to say, the state is dominated by two huge television markets, and neither of them is based in New Jersey.
New Jersey is in the anomalous position of being comprised totally of de facto "orphan counties" that have no in-state market from which to import programming. In many such areas, you would have out-of-market stations from within the state that could be fed to cable and even non-cable MVPD viewers, but New Jersey doesn't have anyplace that fits that description. Delaware is another, unless you count WRDE-LD (newsroom in Milton but otherwise a Salisbury MD station), and such a news operation would have no content of any real interest to anyone in Wilmington or Newark, but then again Delaware is a much smaller state in terms of population.
Then there's News12
When everyone had cable, they were it.
I didn't think of them, thanks. Quite aside from News 12, though, which has been doing what it does for a long time, I have been concerned that in places where Spectrum has dedicated in-state news services, and in-state channels aren't otherwise available, cable companies could drop whatever in-state channels they carry, and tell viewers in orphan counties, you get plenty of in-state news, it's just on this one channel. I really don't think viewers want to depend on a somewhat obscure news channel with limited resources, in lieu of highly-rated legacy news operations, such as WKYT Lexington KY or WBNS Columbus, which reach portions of their respective states on cable that cannot otherwise get in-state news.Then there's News12
When everyone had cable, they were it.
Looking at these last batch of posts reminded me that the FCC did assign two commercial television stationss, one to Atlantic City, NJ (Channel 4) and one to Georgetown, DE (Channel 5) in 2015.
I read about this in a different article from the .pdf file posted above, and that article said that there was a law on the books that each and every state had to have at least one commercial full power television channel assigned to it; hence the 2015 TV channel assignments. I do not know whether or not either channel ever got on to the air or whether either channel is still broadcasting today.
I read about this in a different article from the .pdf file posted above, and that article said that there was a law on the books that each and every state had to have at least one commercial full power television channel assigned to it; hence the 2015 TV channel assignments. I do not know whether or not either channel ever got on to the air or whether either channel is still broadcasting today.
There's also WMBC for the northern part of the state. Despite being an affiliate of Estrella TV, they produce an in-house English language newscast. They do also cover NYC, but are mainly focused on New Jersey. Hometown News can be seen here.Then there's News12
When everyone had cable, they were it.
Channel 4 (WACP) was a local station that later pivoted to infomercials and today is a religious station, part of Tri-State Christian Television (TCT).
Which again explains why NJ is in the situation it's in with TV coverage. Atlantic City is on a peninsula in the most southeastern portion of the state that isn't practical as a commercial broadcasting location. More fish than people. The places in the state that are most practical are across the river from immense population centers where those TV stations ultimately relocate. This is what led to the creation of New Jersey Public Broadcasting.
New Jersey was roughly in the same situation with WMGM Wildwood that Delaware is in with WRDE-LD Salisbury/Milton (IIRC they were once licensed to Rehoboth), both NBC affiliates, both with local news that really wouldn't be relevant to the rest of their respective states (though WRDE might have some statehouse coverage from Dover, it's not that far away).
The whole "at least one VHF (not just full-power, which WMGM was) commercial station per state" thing was complicated. At least in theory, WWOR relocating to Secaucus was supposed to address that in the case of New Jersey. The way things ended up, the stations that are now WJLP and WDPN were forklifted from Nevada and Wyoming respectively, even retaining K-series calls at the outset, to satisfy this requirement. But for reasons I don't recall, the FCC went one step further and allocated channel 4 to Atlantic City (which became WACP) and channel 5 to Dover (which is now WMDE). Fast-forward to the present, both are basically coatracks for diginets, with WMDE being assigned to the Washington market by Nielsen on top of that. I don't think that outcome is quite what the FCC had in mind.
First, PBS didn't exist until 1970. Before that, it was National Educational Television (NET).
Second: if you know the history of WNDT/WNET, then you know why New Jersey had to have it's own focused public tv outlet. Thirteen may have done public affairs-type shows focused on Newark and northern NJ, but there wasn't a newscast or any sort–probably not until WNET started carrying NJPTV/NJN's newscast (which it co-produced for many years) in the late 1970s.
WHYY-TV was in a somewhat similar situation–after moving from Philadelphia-licensed channel 35 to channel 12 in Wilmington, they had to figure a way to still serve Delaware while keeping its main focus on Philadelphia. New Jersey was most likely a tertiary concern to them, at best.
If I remember correctly, the Atlantic City and Dover allocations were ham-fisted attempts by the FCC to block then KVNV/KJWY from moving into the NYC/Philly markets. The FCC (and some broadcasters) saw this as an attempt by then owner, PMCM TV, to exploit a perceived loophole in the law. Some of that background can be found here: https://cdbs.recnet.com/corres/?doc=28229
Eventually, PMCM prevailed and was eventually permitted to proceed with building out the NJ and Delaware stations (ironically with transmission facilities in NYC and Philadelphia, respectively).
Thanks for the information. It's also worth noting that both of the new VHF allocations (4 to Atlantic City and 5 to Seaford) were far removed from the major population centers of those states. Southeastern New Jersey and southern Delaware are relatively lightly-populated areas. It's as though the FCC said, in so many words, "you said 'allocations to those states', you didn't say where".
Yes, on WNET & Z-100.
But Channel 9 is the only VHF TV full power commercial station now assigned to New Jersey. Channel 13 being non-commercial.
And three UHF commercials - Channel 41 (UHF full power) WXTV is licensed to Paterson, NJ and Channel 47 (UHF full power) WNJU is licensed to Linden, NJ.
I don't know if that --- what was it, another UHF is still around in Northern NJ?
It looks like there is a UHF 65 in southern NJ but there was a UHF in northern NJ licensed (I think) up in Sussex County???
Maybe somebody knows.
Atlantic City area has/had Channel 40 as a commercial station, but it doesn't/didn't have a great signal.
Again, Channel 9 WWOR is the only VHF full power station now licensed to New Jersey. I recall that being a big issue back when NJ wanted a commercial VHF after losing Channel 13.
But all of this goes back to why there is a need for some kind of TV service that is actually based in NJ and is dedicated to NJ. That's what this new incarnation of NJ PBS aims to be.
That would be WMBC on channel 63 in Newton, affiliated with Estrella TV.