FCC To Force Station To Care About Jersey
Television station WWOR (My9, currently playing: Divorce Court), owned by NewsCorp, just may become the first television station in years to have its broadcast license rejected (but probably not). And not because of that quaint law barring newspaper owners from owning T.V. stations in the same market—NewsCorp is one of 11 companies that both control all the media and hold "temporary" waivers of that particular law. Instead their renewal is being challenged by community groups because My9 is a New Jersey station that doesn't actually cover New Jersey.
They call themselves "My9 New York" and they overwhelmingly cover New York news over whatever the hell is going on in north Jersey. Though as the New York Times reports today, they're beginning to live up to their special mandate to serve their community.
After community groups demanded the FCC hold a hearing investigating just how well My9 serves the community, the station swung into action to address their concerns.
Many people complained that WWOR, which was acquired by Fox Television Stations in 2001 and is based in Secaucus, N.J., promotes itself as "My9 New York" and that the home page on the station's Web site features an image of the New York skyline. (Less than two hours after the hearing, WWOR replaced the skyline image with one of the George Washington Bridge.)
See? Nothing says Jersey like the bridge that takes you out of it. Maybe they could make a whole montage! Shuttle bus arriving at the Newark Airport, the Acela whooshing past Secaucus, the Philadelphia skyline, that sort of thing.
We're sure their crew has the ingenuity to whip something up. After all, when My9's Vice President showed up at the meeting to play a video montage of all 20 minutes of New Jersey coverage their station has played in the last month or so, "[w]hat appeared to be masking tape had been placed over the letters 'NY' in the 'My9NY' slogan on a WWOR television video camera that was recording the proceedings." Clever!
Of course the FCC officials had arrived with what appeared to be masking tape over the words "competition", "diversity", and "localism" in their organization's charter, so My9 probably doesn't need to worry too much.
