SECAUCUS – Piece by piece, it looks like My9NJ is making its way out of town — for good.
The Fox-owned TV station located at 43 Meadowlands Parkway was sold in September for $4.05 million to local real estate giant, Hartz Mountain. The facility’s massive satellite dishes, which broadcast the network’s programming for years, have begun to be dismantled.
Just a month before the facility was sold, the Federal Communications Commission agreed to renew WWOR-TV’s broadcasting license. U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, who has long been critical of the station for not providing enough New Jersey programming, said WWOR stopped catering to Northern New Jersey communities years ago.
“This pending sale was no secret, making it that much more appalling that the FCC would grant them an eight-year license extension to operate in New Jersey,” Menendez said in a statement.
The station’s parent company, Fox Television Stations, did not return messages seeking comment.
A spokeswoman for the company previously told NJ Advance Media that WWOR fully complied with the Communications Act and that the renewal process took more than 11 years.
The Secaucus-based studio was built in 1985 and became the station’s home in January 1986. But in 2013, WWOR began airing “Chasing New Jersey” — a TMZ style news program that took the place of evening news broadcasts. The program, which has since been rebranded as “Chasing News,” covers a smattering of local and national stories.
“By selling their Secaucus studios, they’ve officially put the final nail in the coffin and any legitimate claim to calling themselves a New Jersey broadcast station,” Menendez said.
An adjacent 7.4 acre lot was also sold for $2.5 million in 2017.
Hartz Mountain did not return a message seeking comment.