The times when the audience got a little rambunctious? Laura Jones loved it. Just as she did when the candidates started to stretch past their time limit and she had to take control. Just as she did when crowd members unknowingly stepped in front of her teleprompter during intros and outro moments.
OK. Maybe blocking the teleprompter wasn’t really on the list of highlights. But it’s all part of the deal when you do live TV. And being able to handle anything and everything that comes at you — and do it without a streaming audience of hundreds of thousands knowing — comes with years of experience.
It’s why Jones and the two dozen members of the On New Jersey team were able to produce a live and lively gubernatorial debate Sunday night in Lawrenceville.
“I want the audience to feel a part of the production, because — to a certain degree — they are part of the ensemble,” she told BINJE. “If you look at this as a theatre production, you’ve got your leads, the candidates, and then you got the ensemble around them.
“I wanted the audience to be a part of the excitement. I didn’t want to mute them when they are starting to applaud.”
That’s bad TV, she said. Especially when you’re covering the largest in-person debate in state history.
“Sometimes we need to reel it in, but I’m cognizant that most people are only going to see this on TV, so I’m wondering: ‘How is this translating?’ What are the viewers seeing as opposed to what are people seeing in the auditorium,’” she said. “That’s what makes it fun.”
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Gerald D’Ambra, the co-founder and managing partner of ON New Jersey didn’t have to worry about anyone stepping in front of his shot. He just had to worry about everything else.
While Jones and the candidates (and the moderators) took center stage for 90 minutes Sunday night, D’Ambra had to be concerned with all five hours of live streaming programming the network was showing — as it produced extensive pre- and post-debate coverage, too.
And those five hours took far more than five weeks to prepare for.
“It’s weeks and weeks of preparation,” he told BINJE. “You’re testing equipment and figuring out where we are going to put our cameras and our lights. It’s weeks of coordinating with Rider University, who was a fantastic partner in this.
“And when you add in the addition of a massive amount of security with the state police, which took on an additional aspect after last week, and it’s quite an undertaking.”
The effort doesn’t end when the final post-debate event signs off.
In addition to creating numerous clips that can be used on social media, there is an effort to get the event rebroadcast everywhere, starting with C-Span.
And for this event itself, there is an effort to get it rebroadcast in other languages, too.
On New Jersey has translated events into Spanish before, but with this broadcast, they are working on translating it into more than a half-dozen languages: Brazilian, Portuguese, European Portuguese, Hindi, Korean, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese, D’Ambra said.
“The goal is to reach as many people in as many ways as possible,” he said.
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There are plenty of ways to measure impact — starting with viewership.
The main event Sunday already has done 250,000 streams, D’Ambra said. On New Jersey hopes to top 1,000,000 streams when all of the rebroadcasts are complete.
Doing so would double its previous highs. D’Ambra said the network did a combined total of approximately 900,000 streams for the two primary debates it produced earlier this year.
Another metric is sponsorship.
Lisa Marie Falbo, the co-founder, said the network was thrilled by the number of companies that were looking to partner on the event, starting with the law firm of O’Toole Scrivo, the presenting sponsor.
Other sponsors included Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, PSEG, AARP New Jersey, Audible, Johnson & Johnson, RWJBarnabas Health, Prudential Financial, New Jersey Business & Industry Association, McCarter & English and Mercury.
“The interest on that side of it was extraordinary,” she said. “For us, it really was the arrival of On New Jersey on the mainstream scene when it comes to media.”
A watershed moment, for sure.
“The number one question I got when I engaged with sponsors was, ‘How long have you guys been around?’” Falbo said. “It used to be, ‘Where do I find you?’ And when I tell them we started in February of 2023, their jaws all dropped.
“This sets the stage for us to engage with a lot of those people on different levels outside of politics, on community engagement stories, news and weather. It really legitimized us.”
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To be clear, the streaming site is new — the people running it are not. They are highly skilled veterans of the industry.
“We have a core group of people who not only have worked together on all of the debates but have worked together for decades,” Jones said. “So many people in the industry who have been let go at traditional media outlets are coming to us; they know that streaming is the future.”
Blending the past and the present was never more obvious than in the opening minutes of the debate.
Increased security meant delays in getting people into the venue. Not wanting to start until all was settled, Jones, D’Ambra and David Wildstein, the head writer at New Jersey Globe and the lead moderator at the event, decided to delay the opening a few minutes — something that could have never been done on network television.
They just needed to explain it to the online audience — and did so with a joke at Wildstein’s expense about traffic problems.
“We just decided to do it on the spot,” Jones said.
The oohs and aahs from the crowd let them know the joke was a hit — and that they were mastering the moment. Jones, the moderators and the candidates took it from there.
On New Jersey had its moment, proving it is worthy of producing the premier political event of the year.
And while they will not produce the second gubernatorial event, they won’t rest on their laurels.
Their next test is right around the corner — on Oct. 14.
“We’re doing to do back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back debates for local races, for mayor and for seats in the Assembly,” D’Ambra said.
It will be another opportunity for On New Jersey to cement itself as a force on the N.J. news media scene.
