• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Senator Seeks FCC Review of WWOR-TV’s License

A

AKA

Senator Seeks F.C.C. Review of WWOR-TV’s License

By Brian Stelter
Published: July 9, 2013

WWOR, the New Jersey-based television station, faced a new challenge to its license on Tuesday from United States Senator Robert Menendez.

Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, wrote to the Federal Communications Commission to urge a “prompt and thorough review” of the license that permits WWOR to profit from the public airwaves. His letter came one day after the station replaced its traditional half-hour nightly newscast, the only daily news on its schedule, with a tabloid-style magazine program called “Chasing New Jersey.”

“In light of WWOR’s decision to drop their nightly news programming, a decision which affects millions of New Jerseyans, it is becoming increasingly critical that the F.C.C. make a determination about WWOR’s license and whether they are adequately serving New Jersey as the law and F.C.C. rules stipulate,” Mr. Menendez wrote to Mignon L. Clyburn, the acting chair of the commission.

More at nytimes.com.
 
Seems like this is a New York TV board story, not a national one.

Lotsa luck senator. This worked a quarter century ago but that was then and this is now. A station in Wilmington, DE (that operates out of Philly) dropped their token Delaware newscast last year and some people squawked but nothing happened.

All the station has to do is pull out Nielsen numbers to show New Jersey viewers weren't watching that newscast. Even better, show they were watching newscasts from across the river.
 
Even so, surely this idiotic Senator MUST realize that the New York City ststions serve New Jersey as well AND the VAST MAJORITY of WWOR's viewers live in - Wait for it - THE NEW YORK CITY METRO AREA !!!

It just so happens to be that WWOR's transmitter is in New Jersey (And Fox maintains the farm it sits on as a backup facility for all the NYC TV stations to the Empire State Building)

Surely though, is this fool of a Senator trying to tell us he can't get airtime on one of the other stations who's transmitter is atop the Empire State Building ?? #GimmeABreak ::)

Cheers & 73 ;D
 
Pat Cook said:
Even so, surely this idiotic Senator MUST realize that the New York City ststions serve New Jersey as well AND the VAST MAJORITY of WWOR's viewers live in - Wait for it - THE NEW YORK CITY METRO AREA !!!

It just so happens to be that WWOR's transmitter is in New Jersey (And Fox maintains the farm it sits on as a backup facility for all the NYC TV stations to the Empire State Building)

Surely though, is this fool of a Senator trying to tell us he can't get airtime on one of the other stations who's transmitter is atop the Empire State Building ?? #GimmeABreak ::)

Cheers & 73 ;D
Click to expand...

The phrase "idiotic Senator" is redundant. ;D
 
FredLeonard said:
Seems like this is a New York TV board story, not a national one.
Click to expand...
I get that, but isn't this a situation that could have repercussions nationwide? After all, it involves an international conglomerate that owns stations (many of which are duopolies) across the country.

Even if it doesn't have a national impact, I still believe this is a big story that those of us who don't frequent the New York subforum (I'm in California, for instance) might be interested in.
 
Pat Cook said:
It just so happens to be that WWOR's transmitter is in New Jersey (And Fox maintains the farm it sits on as a backup facility for all the NYC TV stations to the Empire State Building)
Click to expand...

WWOR's transmitter is on the Empire State Building. The facility in Secaucus is only a studio; there are no transmitters there.
 
AKA said:
Senator Seeks F.C.C. Review of WWOR-TV’s License

By Brian Stelter
Published: July 9, 2013

WWOR, the New Jersey-based television station, faced a new challenge to its license on Tuesday from United States Senator Robert Menendez.

Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, wrote to the Federal Communications Commission to urge a “prompt and thorough review” of the license that permits WWOR to profit from the public airwaves. His letter came one day after the station replaced its traditional half-hour nightly newscast, the only daily news on its schedule, with a tabloid-style magazine program called “Chasing New Jersey.”

“In light of WWOR’s decision to drop their nightly news programming, a decision which affects millions of New Jerseyans, it is becoming increasingly critical that the F.C.C. make a determination about WWOR’s license and whether they are adequately serving New Jersey as the law and F.C.C. rules stipulate,” Mr. Menendez wrote to Mignon L. Clyburn, the acting chair of the commission.

More at nytimes.com.
Click to expand...

In Los Angeles the news programs regularly runs stories from LA, Orange, Riverside & San Bernardino counties with some stories coming from Ventura & Kern counties. I'm sure the NYC news does the same with the tri-state area even covering Pennsylvania when the story is big enough.

If Menendez doesn't see enough stories about Joisey maybe it's the fact nothing happened in (northern) NJ worth reporting on that day. That being the case maybe all the action is down south as Philly news has lots of Jersey stories to fill their time. :D
 
ajc_trw said:
That being the case maybe all the action is down south as Philly news has lots of Jersey stories to fill their time. :D
Click to expand...

Not yesterday. It must have been a slow news day in Philly. The lead story on the 4PM News yesterday on 6 ABC Action News was about a Dry Cleaning Business being evicted from a shopping center and patrons having to stand in long lines to get their belongings back.
 
I don't get it, there's no requirement to run news and there never has been. Even when the FCC looked at local programs they were only concerned it was local not news.
 
True, except that this is an unusual case because of the requirements (both explicit and implied) placed on the channel 9 license when it was "moved" from NYC to Secaucus in 1983. Anyone who's operated channel 9 since then knew exactly what they were getting into when they bought it, and that includes News Corp.

What's more, News Corp. had an additional public interest hurdle to overcome, and that's the waiver that it's had to maintain to keep not only channels 5 and 9 but also the New York Post. As I speculated in my column this week, the timing of their decision to close the Secaucus newsroom may well be related not only to the death of Sen. Lautenberg but also to the corporate separation now underway between News Corp's TV interests and Murdoch's newspapers. If the cross-ownership waiver between WWOR and the Post is no longer an issue, that significantly reduces the leverage the FCC can exert over WWOR's programming going forward.

It's been curious, at least to me, to see how the outcry over "no New Jersey TV" has somehow exempted three other full-power commercial signals licensed to north Jersey. Univision's WXTV (Paterson) and WFUT (Newark) operate from studios in Manhattan and bill themselves as "New York" stations, while Telemundo's WNJU (Linden) at least has studios in Fort Lee, but brands as "Telemundo NY." WXTV even pulls better ratings at times than some of the NYC-licensed commercial ratings. Yet there's never been any pressure that I've seen to make their newscasts more NJ-centric.
 
There was a requirement for public service programming, which included news. News turned out to be the only public service programming stations could make money with, so news programming expanded.

In a market covering multiple jurisdictions, the people in the outlying areas often complain they don't get enough attention. New Jersey residents complain New York stations don't pay enough attention. Delaware residents complain Philly stations don't pay enough attention. Outer borough residents also complain. Given were market populations are located, most stations probably give disproportionate attention to the big city in the market, but often its mostly crime and disaster and scandal, so people in the 'burbs are glad they moved out.
 
Let's be clear, this senator wants to force the FCC to take WWOR from Rupert Murdoch because the senator does not like Murdoch's politics. You could give the station to someone in New Jersey and they would very soon do the same thing Fox has just done: cancel the newscast. This will likely go nowhere. Besides, Fox has replaced the little-watched NYC-centric newscast on the station with a daily program that is ostensibly about New Jersey. It makes the Senator's argument look very weak.
 
landtuna said:
Pat Cook said:
Even so, surely this idiotic Senator MUST realize that the New York City ststions serve New Jersey as well AND the VAST MAJORITY of WWOR's viewers live in - Wait for it - THE NEW YORK CITY METRO AREA !!!

It just so happens to be that WWOR's transmitter is in New Jersey (And Fox maintains the farm it sits on as a backup facility for all the NYC TV stations to the Empire State Building)

Surely though, is this fool of a Senator trying to tell us he can't get airtime on one of the other stations who's transmitter is atop the Empire State Building ?? #GimmeABreak ::)

Cheers & 73 ;D
Click to expand...

The phrase "idiotic Senator" is redundant. ;D
Click to expand...

Followed by the words after the Senator "New York City"
or the word "Bloomburg"
::)
 
AKA said:
FredLeonard said:
Seems like this is a New York TV board story, not a national one.
Click to expand...
I get that, but isn't this a situation that could have repercussions nationwide? After all, it involves an international conglomerate that owns stations (many of which are duopolies) across the country.

Even if it doesn't have a national impact, I still believe this is a big story that those of us who don't frequent the New York subforum (I'm in California, for instance) might be interested in.
Click to expand...

It'll be interesting to see what happens in this case, with Fox trying to market WWOR as a New York station more than a New Jersey station. If the FCC were to rule against Fox for dropping programming for New Jersey, & decided to revoke their license for WWOR, then what would happen with some of these other stations around the country that are marketed more toward the metro area than for the area's COL. Fox has a duopoly in the Chicago market, with WPWR-TV being licensed to Gary, IN. WPWR-TV on channel 50 (or their current digital channel, 51, hasn't served NW Indiana since RF 50 signed back on in late 1986, & WPWR-TV's programming moved to 50 in January 1987. Before WPWR-TV moved to channel 50 in 1987, channel 50 was originally allocated non-commercial & had the call letters WCAE, & was NET before 1970, & PBS until it went off the air in 1983. The non-commercial allocation was moved to 56 (also licensed to Gary, IN) by 1985 or 1986. Even Univision has a duopoly with both of their stations licensed to suburbs (WXFT-DT licensed to Aurora, IL & WGBO-DT licensed to Joliet, IL), but marketed as Chicago stations.

As for what I hear about New York stations that do news, I hear that most stations underserve New York City, due to the city not being adequately being covered by the news. Even Chicago stations don't cover all of Chicago, but they do cover a few nearby suburbs in the news. Personally, I doubt the New Jersey senator will be able to get WWOR's license revoked, as the rules for the license are probably outdated. If a station can have their transmitter & antenna in the metro area, the station's owner will prefer to serve the metro market than the suburbs.
 
Scott Fybush said:
True, except that this is an unusual case because of the requirements (both explicit and implied) placed on the channel 9 license when it was "moved" from NYC to Secaucus in 1983. Anyone who's operated channel 9 since then knew exactly what they were getting into when they bought it, and that includes News Corp.

What's more, News Corp. had an additional public interest hurdle to overcome, and that's the waiver that it's had to maintain to keep not only channels 5 and 9 but also the New York Post. As I speculated in my column this week, the timing of their decision to close the Secaucus newsroom may well be related not only to the death of Sen. Lautenberg but also to the corporate separation now underway between News Corp's TV interests and Murdoch's newspapers. If the cross-ownership waiver between WWOR and the Post is no longer an issue, that significantly reduces the leverage the FCC can exert over WWOR's programming going forward.

It's been curious, at least to me, to see how the outcry over "no New Jersey TV" has somehow exempted three other full-power commercial signals licensed to north Jersey. Univision's WXTV (Paterson) and WFUT (Newark) operate from studios in Manhattan and bill themselves as "New York" stations, while Telemundo's WNJU (Linden) at least has studios in Fort Lee, but brands as "Telemundo NY." WXTV even pulls better ratings at times than some of the NYC-licensed commercial ratings. Yet there's never been any pressure that I've seen to make their newscasts more NJ-centric.
Click to expand...

I'd say because those channels were never part of 2-13 pre DTV-switch. In fact, I noticed in 2009 WWOR reduced it's newscast time/eliminated weekend newscasts shortly after the DTV cutoff date. What good is that issue when channels 2-6 technically don't exist anymore?
 
liradioisbad said:
Scott Fybush said:
True, except that this is an unusual case because of the requirements (both explicit and implied) placed on the channel 9 license when it was "moved" from NYC to Secaucus in 1983. Anyone who's operated channel 9 since then knew exactly what they were getting into when they bought it, and that includes News Corp.

What's more, News Corp. had an additional public interest hurdle to overcome, and that's the waiver that it's had to maintain to keep not only channels 5 and 9 but also the New York Post. As I speculated in my column this week, the timing of their decision to close the Secaucus newsroom may well be related not only to the death of Sen. Lautenberg but also to the corporate separation now underway between News Corp's TV interests and Murdoch's newspapers. If the cross-ownership waiver between WWOR and the Post is no longer an issue, that significantly reduces the leverage the FCC can exert over WWOR's programming going forward.

It's been curious, at least to me, to see how the outcry over "no New Jersey TV" has somehow exempted three other full-power commercial signals licensed to north Jersey. Univision's WXTV (Paterson) and WFUT (Newark) operate from studios in Manhattan and bill themselves as "New York" stations, while Telemundo's WNJU (Linden) at least has studios in Fort Lee, but brands as "Telemundo NY." WXTV even pulls better ratings at times than some of the NYC-licensed commercial ratings. Yet there's never been any pressure that I've seen to make their newscasts more NJ-centric.
Click to expand...

I'd say because those channels were never part of 2-13 pre DTV-switch. In fact, I noticed in 2009 WWOR reduced it's newscast time/eliminated weekend newscasts shortly after the DTV cutoff date. What good is that issue when channels 2-6 technically don't exist anymore?
Click to expand...
They do exist, but no one in their right mind would use them except to park a "franken-FM" on 6.
 
Dave said:
It'll be interesting to see what happens in this case, with Fox trying to market WWOR as a New York station more than a New Jersey station.
Personally, I doubt the New Jersey senator will be able to get WWOR's license revoked, as the rules for the license are probably outdated. If a station can have their transmitter & antenna in the metro area, the station's owner will prefer to serve the metro market than the suburbs.
Click to expand...

Of course, WWOR was that way before -- in the early-1980s, its previous owner, RKO, moved its license and studios to Secaucus, as a way to make nice with the FCC, following its troubles with WNAC in Boston. However, they would later put the station up for sale in 1986 after the red tape continued to accumulate.
 
Morgan Wick said:
They do exist, but no one in their right mind would use them except to park a "franken-FM" on 6.
Click to expand...

Tell that to the folks running WPVI taking the VI part way too seriously. :D
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom