County to petition FCC

County commissioners have voted to petition the Federal Communications Commission to receive local channels through KLTV in Tyler.

Currently, Titus County receives channels from Shreveport, Louisiana.

“Counties are assigned designated market areas,” said Patrick Stacey, vice president and general manager of KLTV. “Those essentially are the market clusters that TV stations and even radio stations serve, and in that designation [is] the ability for satellite providers in the case of DirectTV Dish Network, they’re assigned counties as well.”

“They only get to serve one market,” he said. “And Titus County is assigned to the Shreveport/ Bossier designated market area.”

According to Stacey, the FCC recognized that some counties are underserved.

“Here we are in Titus County and Mount Pleasant, we’re receiving Shreveport news, Shreveport weather, and a lot of it is not relevant,” he said.”

The STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014 was signed into law almost ten years ago, allowing counties, municipalities and broadcasters to petition the FCC to allow orphan status. According to the FCC, orphan counties are those that can’t receive some or even any broadcast signals that originate in-state.

“It doesn’t remove the Shreveport stations, but it would add the East Texas stations that any petitioning body requests,” Stacey said. “But you have to make a case for it.”

The FCC would have 120 days to approve the petition after receiving it. If the FCC rules in favor, the satellite carriage and television stations have 90 days to begin the service to customers.

Titus County Judge said Representative Cole Hefner and Congressman Nathaniel Moran are on board.

Cooper made a motion to move forward with the petition, and it passed unanimously.