New Jersey Network Collection
Other Resources
Collection Summary
The New Jersey Network (NJN) Collection currently includes 3,000 programs and segments available online covering forty years of public television programs and series (1971-2011) from New Jersey Public Television and more than 1,000 additional programs that are available for viewing at the Library of Congress and at GBH. The collection will eventually include approximately 25,000 items in total.
Historically one of the largest producers of local content in the public television system, NJN has a rich and varied selection of local programming. Programs cover New Jersey public, governmental, cultural, and historic affairs such as gubernatorial and senate debates, and coverage of the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. More than 1,600 of the programs available online are from New Jersey Nightly News, dating from 1978 to 1990. This thirty-minute series, acclaimed for its in-depth local news coverage and reporting, was one of public television’s only daily news programs. The collection also includes more than 150 episodes available online from Images/Imagenes, an Emmy-winning series created to educate viewers on the history, needs, achievements, and culture of diverse Hispanic/Latino communities. Broadcast from 1972 (first under the title “Mi Casa Su Casa”) until 2011, and then revived in 2019, Images/Imagenes is the longest running Latino program on the air. Other series in the NJN Collection include State of the Arts, a weekly local program with New Jersey’s creative personalities; Due Process, the Emmy award winning legal public affairs program; Public Affairs, On the Record, Around and About New Jersey, Made in New Jersey, New Jersey Outdoors, and New Jersey Tonight. The collection also contains raw footage of many New Jersey locations and landmarks.
Collection Background
The first of four New Jersey PBS stations that eventually made up NJN, WNJT went on the air in 1971, followed in 1972 by WNJS, and in 1973 by WNJN and WNJB. The state-owned stations were operated by the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority first under the name New Jersey Public Television and later as New Jersey Network or NJN. In 2011, the State entered into an agreement with Public Media NJ, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation, to provide public television programming and services on these channels under the name of NJ PBS and online at mynjpbs.org. The NJPBA contributed items to the AAPB starting in 2014.
