KLTV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Tyler, Texas, United States, serving East Texas as an affiliate of ABC and Telemundo. K31PR-D (channel 31) is a digital translator, also licensed to Tyler, in full simulcast with the primary KLTV digital feed. Owned by Gray Television, the stations maintain studios on West Ferguson Street in downtown Tyler (between the Smith County and United States courthouses), and the transmitter site is located in rural northern Smith County (near the Wood County line). KTRE (channel 9) in Lufkin operates as a semi-satellite of KLTV. As such, it simulcasts all network and syndicated programming as provided through KLTV but airs separate commercial inserts, legal identifications, weeknight newscasts and Sunday morning religious programs, and has its own website. KLTV serves the northern half of the Tyler–Longview–Lufkin–Nacogdoches market while KTRE serves the southern portion. The two stations are counted as a single unit for ratings purposes. Although KTRE maintains its own studios on TV Road (near US 69) in the unincorporated community of Pollok, master control and some internal operations are based at KLTV's facilities. History The station first signed on the air on October 14, 1954; it was founded by the locally-based company Buford Television, which was owned by Lucille Buford. KLTV has been an ABC affiliate since its debut; however, it initially carried the network as a secondary service, while it shared primary affiliation with both CBS and NBC; the station also aired programming from the DuMont Television Network on a secondary basis until 1955. The station originally operated from studio facilities on Texas Loop 323 on the east side of Tyler. In 1964, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) collapsed Lufkin and Nacogdoches into the Tyler market. Soon afterward, the Buford family bought KTRE and converted it into a semi-satellite of KLTV. KLTV lost the CBS affiliation in September 1984, when Longview-based KLMG-TV (channel 51, now Fox affiliate KFXK-TV) signed on. It retained a secondary affiliation with NBC until KETK-TV (channel 56) signed on in March 1987, resulting in channel 7 becoming an exclusive ABC affiliate. Buford Television owned KLTV and KTRE until 1989, when it sold the stations to Jackson, Mississippi-based Civic Communications. In 1996, KLTV relocated its operations from its longtime studios on Texas Loop 323 in eastern Tyler to a new facility downtown, located in a former savings & loan branch and office complex near the Smith County courthouse;