New Jersey Network signs off

Forty years after New Jersey's state television and radio network went on the air, it signed off for the last time Thursday. NJN has been taken over by WNET, the flagship PBS station in New York. It is now NJTV. The final newscast Thursday evening ended with a shot showing a newsroom of empty cubicles in the Trenton headquarters and finally the words "New Jersey Network. April 5, 1971 - June 30, 2011," The Star-Ledger of Newark reported. Many Republican leaders had wanted for years to get the state out of the broadcasting business. Gov. Chris Christie succeeded where the last Republican governor, Christie Whitman, failed. In addition to transferring the television operation to WNET, Christie arranged the sale of NJN's nine radio licenses. NJN was started because of concern that the state got short shrift from TV news operations in the tri-state New York and Philadelphia television markets. While its audience was generally small, many of its viewers were loyal and enthusiastic and NJN won awards for its news coverage and local public affairs shows. The network transmitted from four stations in Trenton, Camden, Newark and Montclair, providing almost total state broadcast coverage.