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NJ PBS (known as NJTV prior to 2021) is a
public television Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive f ...
network serving the
U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...
of
New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
. The network is owned by the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority (NJPBA), an agency of the New Jersey state government which owns the
licenses A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...
for all but one of the
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
member stations licensed in the state. NJPBA outsources the network's operations to Public Media NJ, a wholly-owned subsidiary of
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
–based The WNET Group (formerly known as the Educational Broadcasting Corporation and later as WNET.org), the parent company of
Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, the county seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, and a principal city of the New York metropolitan area. ...
–licensed
WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as Thirteen (stylized as THIRTEEN), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the Educ ...
(channel 13) and
Garden City, New York Garden City is a village located in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 23,272 at the time of the 2020 census. The Incorporated Village of Garden City is primarily located within the Town of Hempstead ...
–licensed WLIW (channel 21). In addition to PBS programming, NJ PBS airs shows distributed by
American Public Television American Public Television (APT) is an American nonprofit organization and syndicator of programming for public television stations in the United States. It distributes public television programs nationwide for PBS member stations and indepen ...
(APT); the network also produces and broadcasts its own programs, mostly related to issues in New Jersey. NJ PBS' operations are based in
Englewood, New Jersey Englewood is a city in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Englewood was incorporated as a city by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1899, from portions of Ridgefield Township and the remaining portions of Engle ...
. Its anchor studio is located at Gateway Center in Newark.
Master control Master control is the technical hub of a broadcast operation common among most over-the-air television stations and television networks. It is distinct from a production control room (PCR) in television studios where the activities such as swit ...
and some internal operations are based at WNET's studios in the Worldwide Plaza complex in
Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan, serving as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Building, the ...
. NJ PBS is the successor to
New Jersey Network The New Jersey Network (NJN) was a network of public television and radio stations serving the U.S. state of New Jersey. NJN was a member of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) for television and the National Public Radio (NPR) for radio, b ...
(NJN), the state-controlled public television and radio service. NJN ceased operations on June 30, 2011, and Public Media NJ took control of the former NJN television stations the following day.


History

In 2008, officials with the New Jersey Network asked the
New Jersey Legislature The New Jersey Legislature is the legislative branch of the government of the U.S. state of New Jersey. In its current form, as defined by the New Jersey Constitution of 1947, the Legislature consists of two houses: the General Assembly and ...
in 2008 for permission to explore making NJN an independent nonprofit organization. Under this scenario, the NJN licenses would have been transferred to the network's fundraising arm, the NJN Foundation. However, on June 6, 2011, New Jersey's
Governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...
during that time,
Chris Christie Christopher James Christie (born September 6, 1962) is an American politician and former United States Attorney, federal prosecutor who served as the 55th governor of New Jersey from 2010 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party (United States) ...
, who vowed to end state-funded public broadcasting when he took 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.Press release (June 6, 2011)
"Gov. Christie Selects WNET for NJN Takeover"
. NJN (via
WMGM-TV WMGM-TV (channel 40) is a television station licensed to Wildwood, New Jersey, United States, affiliated with the True Crime Network. It is owned by TelevisaUnivision alongside Vineland, New Jersey–licensed Univision owned-and-operated statio ...
).
NJN was created in 1971 partly due to concerns that WNET and
Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
's main PBS outlet,
WHYY-TV WHYY-TV (channel 12) is a television station licensed to Wilmington, Delaware, United States, serving as the primary PBS member station for the Philadelphia area. It is owned by WHYY, Inc., alongside NPR member WHYY-FM (90.9). WHYY-TV and WH ...
(channel 12), were not adequately serving their New Jersey viewers. Under the terms of the deal, the NJPBA would retain the licenses, but outsource the stations' operations to Public Media NJ for five years with two additional five-year renewal options. Public Media NJ would receive funding from the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB; stylized as cpb) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to ...
(CPB) and all revenues related to the former NJN technical operations. The measure was defeated by the state assembly on June 23, 2011. 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. The network was relaunched as NJTV; all members of NJN automatically became members of NJTV. The first program to be aired on NJTV was ''
Charlie Rose Charles Peete Rose Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American journalist and talk show host. From 1991 to 2017, he was the host and executive producer of the talk show ''Charlie Rose (talk show), Charlie Rose'' on PBS and Bloomberg L.P., Bloombe ...
'' (which was 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 NJN Foundation merged in September 2012.


Rebranding

On February 24, 2021, NJTV rebranded as "NJ PBS," adapting to the 2019 PBS rebrand recommended to its local stations.


Programming

The Caucus Educational Corporation (CEC), a non-profit producer of New Jersey-focused public affairs programs, is under contract with Public Media NJ and WNET to provide original programming for NJ PBS. CEC produces ''Caucus: New Jersey'', ''State of Affairs'', and ''
One on One with Steve Adubato ''One on One with Steve Adubato'' is an American television series hosted by Steve Adubato. It is aired in New Jersey on NJTV, WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as Thirteen (stylized as THIRTEEN), is a primary PBS member television s ...
'', which are hosted by Steve Adubato. CEC also produced the ''New Jersey Capitol Report'', which ended after a seven-year run in March 2017. NJ PBS also broadcasts programming distributed by PBS,
American Public Television American Public Television (APT) is an American nonprofit organization and syndicator of programming for public television stations in the United States. It distributes public television programs nationwide for PBS member stations and indepen ...
, and additional local productions.


Locally produced programming

*''American Songbook at
NJPAC The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), in Downtown Newark in Newark, New Jersey, is one of the largest performing arts centers in the United States. Home to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO), more than nine million visitors (inclu ...
'' *''Classroom Closeup NJ'' *''Driving Jersey'' *''Due Process'' *''On the Record'' *''Que Pasa NJ'' *''Reporters Roundtable'' *''State of the Arts'' *''This is South Jersey''


News programming

At the inauguration of NJ PBS (as NJTV), the network launched ''NJ Today'', a half-hour newscast that replaced '' NJN News'' and was aired at its former weekday time slots of 6, 7:30 and 11 p.m. It was originally anchored by WNET personality Rafael Pi Roman. Mike Schneider later took over the anchor role. It was renamed to ''NJTV News'' on November 4, 2013. On June 12, 2014, Schneider announced his retirement as anchor on ''NJTV News'' and was replaced by veteran journalist Mary Alice Williams on July 1. Williams later left the newscast after March 13, 2020, to help care for family members who were suffering from health problems. She eventually announced the following month on April 27, 2020, that she would step down as anchor of ''NJTV News''. She was succeeded by Briana Vannozzi, who has anchored the newscast since March 15, 2020. She was an interim anchor until September 9, 2020, when she became a full-time anchor. Schneider still appears on other WNET and NJTV-produced programs, including WNET's ''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 YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
and on NJTV's website. Because of WNET (as well as its sister station WLIW) and WHYY carrying ''
PBS NewsHour ''PBS News Hour'', previously stylized as ''PBS NewsHour'', is the news division of PBS and an American daily evening news broadcasting#television, television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS Network affiliate#Member stations, member stat ...
'', NJ PBS does not carry that program, to avoid unnecessary duplication.
Michael Aron Michael Douglas Aron (born 22 March 1959) is a British diplomat who has been Ambassador to Kuwait, Iraq, Libya and Sudan, and Yemen. Career Aron was educated at Exeter School, Leeds University and the Polytechnic of Central London. He taugh ...
, NJN's
news director A news director is an individual at a broadcast station or network who is in charge of the news department. In local news, the news director is typically in charge of the entire news staff, including journalists, news presenters, photographers, ...
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. He also appears on ''NJTV News'' as its chief political correspondent.


NJ Spotlight News

On October 5, 2020, NJTV's newsroom merged with the New Jersey news site NJ Spotlight (which was acquired by WNET in 2019) and the newscasts were rebranded as ''NJ Spotlight News''. In May 2022, ''NJ Spotlight News'' released its first podcast series, ''Hazard NJ,'' hosted by journalist Jordan Gass-Pooré.


Lottery drawings

When NJN shut down operations, no New Jersey Lottery drawings were aired until September 8, 2011, 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 IBM Watson Media (formerly Ustream and IBM Cloud Video) is an American virtual events platform company which is a division of IBM. Prior to the IBM acquisition, it had more than 180 employees across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Budapest office ...
and
Livestream.com Vimeo Livestream is a video live streaming platform based in New York City that allows customers to broadcast live video content using a camera and a computer through the Internet, and viewers to play the content via the web, iOS, Android, Roku, ...
. NJTV continued hosting the tape-delayed drawings until January 1, 2013, when the drawings were moved to two
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
owned stations,
WLNY WLNY-TV (channel 55), branded on-air as New York 55, is an independent television station licensed to Riverhead, New York, United States, serving the New York City television market. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS ...
and WPSG-TV. From 2014 to 2020, lottery drawings were aired live on
WPIX WPIX (channel 11) is a television station in New York City, serving as the ''de facto'' flagship of The CW Television Network. Owned by Mission Broadcasting, the station is operated by CW majority owner Nexstar Media Group under a local market ...
and
WPHL-TV WPHL-TV (channel 17) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, serving as the local outlet for The CW. The station also maintains a secondary affiliation with MyNetworkTV. Owned and operated by The CW's majority owner, ...
. As of 2020, no drawings for the state lottery are televised; instead the Lottery's afternoon, evening and Cash4Life drawings are carried on the Lottery's website and social media platforms.
Powerball Powerball is an American lottery game offered by 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and overseen by the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), which also manages other large jackpot games such as t ...
and
Mega Millions Mega Millions (originally known as The Big Game in 1996 and renamed, temporarily, to The Big Game Mega Millions six years later) is an American multijurisdictional lottery game. The first drawing took place on September 6, 1996, with six partic ...
drawings were never aired on NJTV as
WTXF-TV WTXF-TV (channel 29) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Owned and operated by the Fox network through its Fox Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on Market Street in Center City an ...
and
WABC-TV WABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, WABC-TV maintains studios in the Hudson Square neighborhood ...
air these drawings (with the latter occasionally airing Powerball drawings at certain occasions).


Stations

NJ PBS' four full-power stations reach a potential audience of almost 28 million people in parts of six states—all of New Jersey, plus parts of New York,
Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...
,
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
,
Delaware Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...
, and even
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...
. While this gives NJ PBS one of the largest potential audiences in the country, it also must compete directly against three of the most-watched PBS member stations in the country–sister stations WNET and WLIW, as well as WHYY-TV. Additionally,
WLVT-TV WLVT-TV (channel 39) is a PBS member television station in Allentown, Pennsylvania, United States. Owned by the Lehigh Valley Public Telecommunications Corporation, doing business as Lehigh Valley Public Media, it is a sister station to Philade ...
(channel 39) in
Allentown, Pennsylvania Allentown (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Allenschteddel'', ''Allenschtadt'', or ''Ellsdaun'') is a city in eastern Pennsylvania, United States. The county seat of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, Lehigh County, it is the List o ...
, overlaps some of NJ PBS' broadcast area. In the FCC
incentive auction The 2016 United States wireless spectrum auction, officially known as Auction 1001, allocated approximately 100 MHz of the United States Ultra High Frequency (UHF) spectrum formerly allocated to UHF television in the 600 MHz band. The sp ...
concluded in 2017, WNJN and WNJT's spectrum was sold back to the FCC for $138,059,363 and $193,892,273, respectively. NJ PBS has announced that these stations will share spectrum with the two remaining stations, WNJS and WNJB respectively. On January 23, 2018, per FCC filings, WNJN began channel-sharing with WNJB and WNJT began channel-sharing with WNJS.


Notes


Translators


Cable and satellite availability

NJ PBS is available on all New Jersey cable providers, along with most cable, satellite and IPTV providers in the New York (utilizing WNJN/WNJB) and Philadelphia (utilizing WNJS/WNJT) television markets, into New York State, Delaware, and Pennsylvania (with some limited availability in
Fairfield County, Connecticut Fairfield County is a County (United States), county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is the List of counties in Connecticut, most populous county in the state and was also its fastest-growing from 2010 to 2020. ...
, and
Cecil County, Maryland Cecil County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland at the northeastern corner of the state, bordering both Pennsylvania and Delaware. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 103,725. The county seat is Elkton. The ...
).


Technical information


Subchannels

The signals of the NJ PBS stations are
multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource— ...
:


References


External links

*
NJ Spotlight News website
{{coord, 40, 13, 13, N, 74, 45, 34, W, type:landmark_region:US-NJ, display=title 2011 establishments in New Jersey Englewood, New Jersey Mass media in Newark, New Jersey PBS member networks Television channels and stations established in 2011 Television stations in New Jersey