WWOR 9 Under Fire For Not Being Jersey Enough

WWOR/channel 9 got a wake-up call that it's supposed to be a New Jersey TV station when the FCC held a hearing about the station's license renewal. Critics say the station's license shouldn't be renewed because it has failed to discuss NJ news and issues.

The station, owned by News Corporation whose local media holdings include WNYW/Channel 5 and the NY Post, was moved to NJ in 1986 due to FCC law that each state have a VHF channel. But, as the Star-Ledger reports, non-profit "Voice of New Jersey cites WWOR's own FCC "Service to New Jersey" reports indicating the station ran 1,354 New Jersey news stories between 1999 and 2006, an average of fewer than 170 stories a year, or one every two days." Not only that, most of the NJ stories that aired were "lurid, tabloid" stories about killings and crimes.