Soon, if all goes according to plan, Keith Olbermann, Tucker Carlson, and many of their colleagues at MSNBC will stroll into the historic confines of 30 Rockefeller Center for work every day, instead of some depressing industrial park in New Jersey. And they'll have New York taxpayers to thank for the honor.

The MSNBC move—some of the third-ranked cable network's operations will go from its Seacaucus, New Jersey, headquarters to 30 Rock; the rest will merge with CNBC's facilities in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey—is part of NBC Universal's cost-slashing reorganization, in which more than 700 jobs will be eliminated, many of them in New York.

But also motivating the move is a corporate welfare program offered by the city and state of New York that is, ironically, designed to increase the number of jobs in the city. "They are getting some pretty direct help" from the city, says a TV news insider familiar with NBC's negotiations with the city over moving to 30 Rock. "Part of the equation that [NBC parent] GE made was predicated on this assistance."

NBC needs all the help it can get: The reorganization comes on the heels of a disastrous couple of years for the network, which saw a 41 percent drop this year in its upfront ad revenue compared to 2004.

The New York City Economic Development Corporation, which handles the subsidies, has granted a whopping $133 million in tax breaks to NBC since 1987, according to corporation spokeswoman Janel Patterson. And NBC Universal executives are currently in talks with the city over how to wring the best tax benefit out of the MSNBC move. That could mean applying a previously approved tax subsidy—breaks on sales, commercial real estate, and property taxes—to new space in Rockefeller Center, or it could mean negotiating an entirely new, and more lucrative, deal. The EDC won't say.

Either way, it means that New York taxpayers will essentially be rewarding NBC for eliminating 700 jobs. NBC claims that the tax break is well-earned, since the move will bring jobs into the city from New Jersey—though it's unclear how many, or if they will outweigh the number of New York jobs eliminated in the restructuring. Critics of the development subsidies point out that NBC would likely be making the move across the river anyway, because it makes economic sense.

Whether or not the move does bring a net increase of jobs to New York, one thing is certain: New Jersey is losing out. And according to New Jersey Policy Perspectives, a group that tracks economic development tax breaks in New Jersey, NBC is reneging on a 1997 deal that granted the network $7.8 million in tax breaks for bringing 440 jobs to the state.

"Under the terms of the agreement, the jobs have to stay there for 15 years," says Jon Shure, president of NJPP. "If they don't, NBC could be asked to pay it back."