NJTV

History

The seeds which led to the eventual formation of NJTV were planted in 2008, when officials with the New Jersey Network asked the New Jersey Legislature for permission to explore the possibility of making NJN a community licensee owned by its fundraising arm, the NJN Foundation. However, on June 6, 2011, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who vowed to end state-funded public broadcasting upon taking office in 2010, announced an agreement to turn control of the NJN television network to WNET. As part of the deal, WNET.org created Public Media NJ as a separate New Jersey-based nonprofit to operate the stations. This is somewhat ironic, since NJN was created in part due to concerns WNET wasn't adequately serving the New Jersey side of its coverage area. Although WNET is licensed to Newark, for all intents and purposes it is a New York City station.

Under the terms of the deal, Public Media NJ would operate the stations for a five-year period, with two additional five-year renewable options. The New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority would retain the licenses, while Public Media NJ would receive funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and all revenues related to the former NJN technical operations. The measure was defeated by the state Assembly on June 23. The state Senate, however, passed the resolution on June 27, allowing Public Media NJ to take over NJN's television operations as scheduled on July 1, 2011. All members of NJN automatically became members of NJTV. The first program to be aired on NJTV was Charlie Rose (which is produced by its sister station WNET).

On July 26, 2011, NJTV announced a partnership with the Foundation for New Jersey Public Broadcasting (formerly the NJN Foundation) to jointly fund and create additional public affairs programming. NJTV and the Foundation merged in September 2012.

Programing

The Caucus Educational Corporation (CEC), a nonprofit producer of New Jersey-focused public affairs programs, is under contract with Public Media NJ and WNET to provide original programming for NJTV. CEC Produces Caucus: New Jersey, State of Affairs, and One on One with Steve Adubato were inherited by NJTV from NJN. These CEC programs are hosted by Steve Adubato. CEC also produced the New Jersey Capitol Report, which ended its run in March 2017 after a seven-year run. NJTV also broadcasts programming distributed by PBS and American Public Television, and additional local productions.

Locally Produced Programming

News Programming

At the inauguration of NJTV, the network launched NJ Today, an half-hour newscasts that replaced NJN News and was aired on its former weekday time slots of 6 PM, 7:30 PM, and 11 PM and was originally anchored by WNET personality, Rafael Pi Roman. Mike Schneider later took over the roles as Anchor. It was later renamed to NJTV News on November 4, 2013.

In June 12, 2014, Schneider announced his retirement as anchor on NJTV News and was replaced by veteran journalist Mary Alice Williams on July 1. Schneider still appears on other WNET/NJTV Produced programs, including Metrofocus. NJTV News is produced at the Agnes Varis studio in Two Gateway Center in Newark. The Newscast can also be seen on Sister Station, WNET, and online via YouTube and on its website (both YouTube and NJTV's website also stream the newscast online).

29-year New Jersey Network veteran Michael Aron, the system's news director at its closure and a former member of the Foundation's board, revived his former NJN programs Reporters Roundtable and On the Record on NJTV, and also appears on NJTV News as its chief political correspondent.

NJTV remains the only PBS Member Network to not air PBS NewsHour as its sister stations, WNET and WLIW (Both transmit towards the New Jersey area), alongside with WHYY-TV and WLVT (which also air their signal towards New Jersey as well) air these newscasts.

Lottery Drawings

When NJN shut down operations, no New Jersey Lottery drawings were aired until September 8, 2011 when it is aired on a Tape Delay. Before this happened, the New Jersey Lottery had no other outlet to showcase any of their live drawings except via Online live streaming services such Ustream and then Livestream.com, although the New Jersey Lottery continues these practices online. NJTV continued with hosting these tape-delayed drawings until January 1, 2013, when it was moved to two CBS Owned Stations, WLNY and WPSG-TV. As of 2016, these Lottery Drawings how now been aired live on two Tribune Broadcasting owned stations, WPIX and WPHL-TV.

Stations

NJTV's four full-power stations reach a potential audience of almost 28 million people in parts of five states – all of New Jersey, plus parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and Delaware. While this gives NJTV one of the largest potential audiences in the country, it also must compete directly with three of the most-watched PBS member stations in the country. It not only shares its coverage area with sister stations WNET and WLIW, but also with Philadelphia's main PBS outlet, WHYY-TV (channel 12). Additionally, WLVT-TV (channel 39) in Allentown, Pennsylvania overlaps some of NJTV's broadcast area.

The NJTV television stations are:

Translators

Areas in the northwestern part of New Jersey are served by the following low-powered translators:

All translators directly repeat WNJN's signal.

Cable and satellite availability

NJTV is available on all New Jersey cable providers. In addition, WNJN is available on several cable providers on the New York side of the New York City area, as well as the New York DirecTV feed. WNJB is available on Charter Communications's systems on Staten Island and Manhattan, as well as the New York Dish Network feed. WNJS is available on most cable providers in the Philadelphia area, as well as the Philadelphia DirecTV and Dish Network feeds.

Digital channels

¹ Each station's respective callsign with "-DT" suffix serves as the PSIP name for the various NJTV stations.