to move to KNXV after KTVK displaced it with a new local morning newscast. KNXV then picked up World News Tonight and Nightline on December 12, the day after Fox programming moved to KSAZ. The rest of ABC's programming moved to KNXV on January 9, 1995. Despite the loss of ABC programming, the Lewises and station management committed to build KTVK into one of the nation's top independents. The station spent some $100 million on new syndicated programming, including Mad About You and Frasier, as well as poaching the most popular shows in syndication at the time from KSAZ-TV—game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!—and programming them in the prime time hour between 7 and 8 p.m. KTVK also broke ground on a new studio center to house its growing operations. The news department was expanded with 20 new staffers. Media America struck a local marketing agreement to operate the new KASW (channel 61) with The WB—which would air on KTVK until KASW launched in September 1995—and children's programming, and it launched the AZ News Channel, a cable offering on Cox Communications systems featuring breaking news and replays of KTVK newscasts that had been in the planning stages since 1993. Another large acquisition came in the form of sports rights to the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team, with channel 3 airing half of the team's games beginning in the 1998 season. The station remained Phoenix's news leader in most time slots, with the exception of 10 pm, when strong NBC programming gave KPNX the lead. In the fall of 1998, KTVK briefly aired The Howard Stern Radio Show; both KTVK (which aired the program after its 10 p.m. news) and Lubbock, Texas, Fox affiliate KJTV-TV pulled the program from their schedules after two episodes. Belo ownership In what Del Lewis described as "the most difficult decision our family has ever made", MAC America sold KTVK and its other remaining assets to the Belo Corporation of Dallas, Texas, for $315 million in July 1999. The Lewises cited the costs of conversion to digital television, economies of scale that station groups had in purchasing syndicated programming, and competition from cable and satellite TV in their decision to sell; the transaction capped two years of selling the rest of the company, including Phoenix Magazine, the production facility, and the radio stations, which had suffered from the needed investments in programming and news expansion