As a CBS affiliate
In March 1994, Great American Communications agreed to sell WBRC to New World Communications, as part of a deal that also involved three of the former group's other television stations (WDAF-TV in Kansas City, KSAZ-TV in Phoenix and WGHP in High Point, North Carolina).[2][3][4] Subsequently, three weeks later, New World agreed to purchase WVTM and three other stations (KTVI in St. Louis, KDFW in Dallas, and KTBC in Austin, Texas) from Argyle Television Holdings.[3] New World was now faced with the prospect of having to divest as many as three of the acquired stations as the FCC forbade broadcasting companies from owning two commercial television stations in the same market, and restricted them from owning more than twelve stations nationwide (the concurrent acquisitions of the Argyle and Citicasters stations put New World three stations over the national television ownership cap).
On May 23, 1994, six months after the network signed a deal with the National Football League (NFL) to acquire the rights to the National Football Conference television package, New World signed an affiliation agreement with Fox to switch twelve of its television stations—six that New World had already owned and eight that the company was in the process of acquiring through the Argyle and Citicasters deals, including WBRC—to the network, once their existing affiliation contracts with CBS, NBC or ABC expired.[4] Although WTTO was one of Fox's strongest affiliates at the time, the network saw the opportunity to affiliate with WBRC because it had been the highest-rated station in the Birmingham market for most of its history.
Seeing a chance to solve its ownership conflicts in Birmingham, New World reached an agreement with Citicasters to sell WBRC (as well as WGHP) directly to the network's owned-and-operated station group, Fox Television Stations, in return for $130 million in promissory notes; New World would also establish an outside trust company that would operate channel 6 until the sale was completed.[5][6]
Even though the sale would be finalized on July 24, 1995, Fox Television Stations could not convert WBRC into a Fox owned-and-operated station in the short term as the station's affiliation agreement with ABC was not set to expire until August 31, 1996. While this put WBRC in the rare position of being owned by the O&O group of one network while still affiliated with another, it also gave ABC enough time to find a replacement affiliate in Birmingham; this was also instrumental in causing a complicated series of affiliation changes involving six central Alabama stations. In November 1995, as part of its $20 million purchase of CBS affiliate WCFT-TV (channel 33, now Heroes & Icons affiliate WSES) in Tuscaloosa from Federal Broadcasting, Allbritton Communications signed a deal with Fant Broadcasting to assume operational responsibilities and provide programming to WNAL-TV under a local marketing agreement. Allbritton backed out of the LMA proposal with Fant in January 1996, and instead signed a deal with Osborne Communications Corporation to acquire the non-license assets of CBS affiliate WJSU-TV (channel 40, now Heroes & Icons affiliate WGWW) in Anniston under an LMA.[7][8][9] The Allbritton deals served as the catalyst for an affiliation agreement between ABC and Allbritton in April 1996 that renewed or established new affiliation deals with the group's seven television stations.[10]
ABC and Allbritton reached a precursor agreement to that affiliation deal two months prior, after it declined an offer by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. Sinclair's notification to the network that the station had no intention of starting a news department and wanted to only carry its prime time and news programming led ABC to turn down an offer to affiliate with WTTO (which, along with WNAL and WDBB, was set to lose its Fox affiliation to WBRC). Under that deal, Allbritton agreed to make WCFT and WJSU the new Central Alabama affiliates of ABC, with WJSU initially intending to act as the satellite station to WCFT (Allbritton would subsequently purchase low-power independent station W58CK (channel 58, now WBMA-LD) in Birmingham to allow the two others to be counted in Nielsen ratings reports for that market). In January 1996, WNAL-TV became a secondary affiliate of The WB; it carried WB programming on tape delay on Sunday and Wednesday nights after Fox network programming. Fant Broadcasting subsequently approached CBS about switching to the network, and in February 1996, reached a deal to make WNAL-TV the network's new affiliate for northeastern Alabama.[11]
On September 1, 1996, when WBRC officially became a Fox owned-and-operated station and W58CK, WCFT and WJSU became ABC affiliates, WNAL officially discontinued its part-time simulcast of WTTO (which, along with WDBB, became independent stations); WCFT and WJSU ceded the CBS programming rights in central Alabama to WNAL, which became the CBS affiliate for the Anniston–Gadsden market, and WBMG, which had recently upgraded its transmitter to provide a much stronger full-power signal throughout much of the central third of the state. Channel 44's switch left Central Alabama without a WB affiliate until WTTO/WDBB switched to the network in January 1997.
