NJN seeks pledge from New Jersey Legislature

ATLANTIC CITY - Two-thirds into taping his show, On the Record, veteran newsman Michael Aron asked what he called the "most self-serving question" of his career at NJN, the state-run public television station in New Jersey.

In a show that airs Sunday, Aron, the station's news director, told leaders of the Legislature that New Jersey Network would go dark Jan. 1 without a state rescue.

"Is that funding going to be there?" he asked.

The most direct answer to that very direct question came from Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D., Essex), who said, "I will not sleep at night unless NJN is on."

But there is no rescue plan in place, and no one seems to know for sure if the station will survive.

NJN, founded in 1971, is based in Trenton. With a budget of about $18 million, it airs programs on public affairs, the arts, and culture as well as education. The budget is supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, broadcast-tower rentals, production income, fund-raising, taxpayer dollars, and grants.

NJN's 150 employees received layoff notices Tuesday, and its 17 foundation employees got their pink slips Thursday.

Neither the Christie administration nor legislative leaders say they want the station to go off the air. They just want it off the books.

The state provides about $7.3 million to NJN in services and buildings. On top of that, it has given the station about $4 million a year to cover operating expenses.

But in attacking a multibillion-dollar budget gap, Gov. Christie and the Legislature cut NJN's $4 million operating subsidy in half. That gave NJN six months to find a suitor or die.

There is no clear suitor and no way, just yet, to transfer the station to one.

The administration and Democratic legislative leaders are working to reconcile a pair of bills that would set up the transfer of the station to a new entity. At issue is whether the administration or a committee that includes legislators gets to control the transfer.

What the new entity is or becomes is still in the shadows. NJN's foundation; Montclair State University; Richard Stockton College; a consortium that includes WNET, a public television station in New York; and others have expressed interest in taking over NJN or at least some valuable pieces of it.

NJN owns several radio and television broadcast licenses, which reach into the lucrative markets of New York and Philadelphia. Groups have expressed interest in buying only the licenses rather than rescuing NJN and maintaining it as a New Jersey-centric station.

Senate Minority Leader Thomas H. Kean Jr. (R., Union) said the station must be preserved because radio and television stations in New York and Philadelphia would not bother to cover New Jersey news and public affairs the way NJN does.

NJN's acting executive director, Janice Selinger, is spending her days hoping for the best and figuring out how to wind down its grants and contracts.

Rather than throw the switch, she said, "we've had a number of contingency plans of perhaps running a loop of programming."

On the days when staff members received their layoff notices, Selinger said, they soldiered on.

"They are just unbelievable, true professionals," she said. "They're continuing to do their jobs."

As is Aron, who said he had asked the question because the news of NJN's troubles had been in the newspapers Wednesday, when he taped his half-hour show at the New Jersey State League of Municipalities meeting in Atlantic City.

"The situation is so dire," he said. "It is a public policy question that is high on the agenda in this age of shrinking newspaper coverage."

And, he said, it was appropriate to ask on his show "because people watching that show won't see it on Jan. 2 or Jan. 9 or any more unless there is some kind of rescue plan."