ISELIN TO QUIT POST AT NEW YORK’S WNET IN JUNE

In a surprise move, John Jay Iselin, a major force within public television for more than a decade, Wednesday announced his intention to resign as president of the system’s largest station, WNET-TV, by the end of next June.

“It’s a simple and logical conclusion to come to that every institution requires and deserves periodic change in leadership, and none more so than a public institution,” said Iselin, surrounded by his senior staff at a news conference held at WNET’s mid-Manhattan office.

Iselin explained the reasons for his unexpected resignation largely in personal terms, citing his 13-year presidency at the station as “way over time to be in one position.”

But he also said “the time is right” for new leadership that “might bring vitality and relieve certain encumbrances” from the public television station as it approaches its 25th anniversary next September.

Iselin, 53, who noted that he reached the final decision to resign only about one week ago, expressed confidence that a recent reorganization in the station’s structure, which in effect shifted some of the day-to-day operations of the station away from him, leaves WNET in “its strongest position ever.”

Other WNET officials said Iselin’s decision came as a surprise, but they agreed that this was a good time for him to leave and speculated that he may have foreseen pressure from the board down the road for a change in the station’s leadership.

One senior staff member, who asked not to be identified, said Iselin, always something of a maverick within public broadcasting, has not been “at the height of his popularity” among the station’s 36-member board of trustees.

The staff member cited the board’s increasingly active role, such as directing reorganization of station management two years ago and at the same time naming William Ellinghaus, former chairman of AT&T;, WNET board chairman.

Ellinghaus appeared with Iselin at the news conference Wednesday and said it was with “great reluctance” that the board’s management committee had accepted Iselin’s resignation at a regular monthly meeting held earlier in the day.

Ellinghaus said a search committee will be formed immediately for “the sizable problem” of finding a replacement for Iselin, who expressed the desire to leave his post by the end of the station’s current fiscal year, June 30, 1987.

He said that he will step down earlier if a successor is found before then.

Iselin said that he had not yet formulated future plans. But he said that he pretty much has ruled out taking another position within public broadcasting, “because it would be hard to imagine a better position than the one I’ve had here.” He came to the station in 1971 as general manager and was named president two years later. Prior to that he had been senior editor for national affairs at Newsweek and then vice president of Harper & Row.

Under his tenure at WNET, the station has grown to be the country’s largest public television station, with an annual budget of $80 million and responsibility for producing, co-producing or acquiring for presentation about 40% of public television’s national, prime-time programming.

Among the series established under Iselin’s administration are “Great Performances,” “American Playhouse,” “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” “Nature” and “Adam Smith’s Money World.” Iselin also has been credited with spearheading special series such as “Heritage: Civilization and the Jews,” “The Brain” and, currently, “The Story of English.”

“Jay Iselin is a visionary in one of broadcasting’s most trying and demanding positions. He has balanced the responsibilities of a local institution with the demands of a national resource, building upon WNET’s distinguished past to forge the most promising future for all of television,” PBS president Bruce Christensen said in a prepared statement.