Important Pinal County Update!
9 March 2023: Pinal County Supervisor Jeff McClure held a "Meet and Greet" in Oracle. He provided an update to the community on the status of the petition to the FCC for a "Market Area Modification" to allow the Tucson TV stations to be provided to southern Pinal County Dish TV and DirecTV customers. The county has been working "behind the scene" with the FCC and attorneys. They are making progress on all the elements that need to be discussed in the petition to the FCC. A survey is in works which will be mailed to all affected Pinal County households, hopefully in the next few weeks. Upon receipt of the survey, everyone MUST submit a response to ensure the proper impacts of not receiving Tucson TV stations are known.
I submitted the following map to the County to be included as part of the petition to the FCC. It shows the service "coverage" area for another agency of the Federal Government. The Tucson office of the National Weather Service covers this portion of southeastern Arizona. Obviously, the current FCC DMA coverage area is a lot different. It would make sense for the FCC DMA and NOAA NWS coverage areas to be more closely aligned for southern Pinal County.
DirecTV or Dish TV subscribers who live in southern Pinal County should continue to contact the Pinal County Supervisors about this critical issue that prohibits viewing the Tucson TV stations. The Board of Supervisors needs to hear from their constituents that an URGENT solution is needed. Here is contact information for the Board:
Supervisor Jeffrey McClure: bosdistrict4@pinal.gov
Supervisor Mike Goodman: mike.goodman@pinal.gov
Supervisor Stephen Miller: Stephen.Miller@pinal.gov
Supervisor Jeff Serdy: jeff.serdy@pinal.gov
Supervisor Kevin Cavanaugh: kevin.cavanaugh@pinal.gov
Pinal County Manager Leo Lew: countymanager@pinal.gov
Pinal County Clerk of the Board Natasha Kennedy: Natasha.Kennedy@pinalcountyaz.gov
Please cc me (mweasner@mac.com) on any emails you send. Thank you.
In many parts of this blog I mention the "Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act" (STELA) legislation passed by Congress many years ago. STELA is now known as the "Satellite Television Community Protection and Promotion Act of 2019" (STCPPA). However, this 2019 Federal "act" has not resulted in protecting communities in southern Pinal County even though members of Congress have known about the harm they have been doing to us since I first raised the issue in 2013 with our then Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick.
Major Pinal County Progress on FCC Petition!
Main Flawed Satellite TV Regulation page