TRENTON — New Jersey officials are completing a deal to give New Jersey Network’s television operation to a new nonprofit corporation run by WNET Channel 13, the PBS flagship station based in New York City. Treasury officials are expected to announce the agreement this week. According to sources who are familiar with the negotiations, WNET will incorporate a new...
Gov. Chris Christie signed a law last December stating discussion on fate of the station must be completed by this week. TRENTON — New Jersey officials are completing a deal to give New Jersey Network’s television operation to a new nonprofit corporation run by WNET Channel 13, the PBS flagship station based in New York City.
Treasury officials are expected to announce the agreement this week.
According to sources who are familiar with the negotiations, WNET will incorporate a new nonprofit company in New Jersey that will manage the operation. It will work with several programmers, including Caucus Educational Corp., the nonprofit New Jersey production company run by Steve Adubato Jr., to provide local content.
The new company is still being formed and has not fully assembled its governing board, said sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the deal.
WNET will pay nothing to the state for the right to run the station, they said. The deal allows the PBS giant to broaden its reach, acquiring a New Jersey audience as well as access to NJN’s donors and underwriters.
Though the state is giving away the station, it will save the roughly $11 million annual cost of running it.
WNET had no comment Saturday. Treasury spokesman Bill Quinn said talks are ongoing.
"Talks concerning the future of New Jersey’s radio assets and broadcasting operation are continuing," Quinn said. "No agreement has been finalized."
Viewers can expect to see some of the same national PBS programming currently broadcast by NJN on its various stations as well as new local programming. The nightly newscast, a hallmark of NJN, and its other existing shows probably will not continue.
New Jersey will retain ownership of the licenses of the public broadcasting network, and the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority will have oversight. But the day-to-day operation will be handled by WNET’s new company.
The four public affairs series currently co-produced by WNET and Caucus Educational Corp. — "Caucus: New Jersey," "One-on-One with Steve Adubato," "New Jersey Capitol Report" and "On the Line" — will be part of the lineup, according to Adubato, who declined to comment on the details of the agreement because he is not directly involved.
"The CEC is looking forward to expanding our long-standing partnership with WNET," Adubato said. "It is that history of partnering with WNET that makes us feel confident that we can create more and better quality New Jersey-centric programming."
Other potential contributors are the state’s colleges and universities. "Actively engaging the higher ed community is a critical part of that effort," he said.
As outlined in the law signed by Gov. Chris Christie last December, negotiations on the fate of the station must be completed by this week. The final deal then goes to the Legislature, which has 15 days to review and approve it. Officials hope to have the deal completed by June 30, the end of the fiscal year. The state is also expected to decide the fate of the network’s radio system by year’s end.
The decision on the successor to NJN is the last step in the 15-month effort to spin off the public broadcasting network from government control. Gov. Chris Christie first proposed the idea in March 2010, when he said the state could no longer afford to be in the TV business and keep NJN’s 130 employees on the state payroll. In 2009, the state spent more than $11 million to run the network of radio and television stations.
The fate of the network’s employees is unclear.
After a series of public hearings and months of closed-door dealings, Christie and the Legislature agreed on a bill that gave the state treasurer the right to negotiate the deal, which lawmakers have the right to refuse.
Working with Public Radio Capital, a public media consultant in Colorado, the state issued three requests for proposals in February seeking bidders to manage the television station and to either manage or buy the radio network. At an Assembly Budget Committee hearing in Trenton earlier this month, Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff said the state received 10 bids, but he would not disclose any names. He said the finalists are "entities that are incorporated or formed in New Jersey" and that the bidding process is on schedule.
The New Jersey Network Foundation and Montclair State University were two of the unsuccessful suitors. An MSU spokeswoman last week said the university had no comment because "to our knowledge the state has not made a final determination as to our proposal or any other." Calls to the NJN Foundation were not returned.
Three years ago, the NJN Foundation made a similar proposal to move NJN from a state-licensed network to a community operation run by the nonprofit group. Faced with repeated cuts in government grants, foundation officials said a nonprofit structure would be more nimble and effective at raising private funds to support the network’s broadcasting.
The plan met fierce resistance from the union representing most of the network’s employees.
A skeptical Assembly committee wondered why the state would give away such a valuable asset. Lacking strong support from Corzine, the plan died.
Lawmakers continue to be skeptical. Assemblywoman Nellie Pou (D-Paterson) was among those who grilled Sidamon-Eristoff about the pending deal. Pou was a member of the Legislature’s bipartisan task force that last fall held more than 11 hours of hearings about the governor’s proposal to spin off the network.
The committee heard testimony from researchers, union officials and many local broadcasters, although representatives from Caucus and WNET did not make statements.
Pou and others pressed the treasurer about ensuring the new operator will be committed to New Jersey in both scope of programming and broadcasting reach.