group sold its only other station not affected by the Fox affiliation deal, WSBK-TV in Boston, to the Paramount Stations Group in November 1994); KTVI, KDFW and KTBC, meanwhile, all became Fox affiliates. Fox Television Stations operated WBRC as an ABC affiliate until August 31, 1996, as its contract with that network had one year left until its expiration when Fox formally purchased the station from the trust (WBRC's conversion into a Fox owned-and-operated station on September 1, 1996, led to a six-station affiliation swap in Central Alabama in which WCFT-TV and WJSU-TV became satellite stations of ABC affiliate low-power W58CK (channel 58, now WBMA-LD); Fox affiliate WNAL-TV (channel 44, now Ion Television owned-and-operated station WPXH-TV) in Gadsden took over as eastern Alabama's CBS affiliate and Fox affiliate WTTO (channel 21) and its Tuscaloosa satellite WDBB (channel 17) became independent stations). On May 22, 1996, New World Communications announced that it would sell WVTM and KNSD to NBC's owned-and-operated station group, NBC Television Stations, for $425 million. This deal came two months prior to then-Fox parent News Corporation's acquisition of New World on July 17, in an all-stock transaction worth $2.48 billion, in which it would acquire New World's remaining twelve Fox-affiliated stations (which would also become owned-and-operated stations of the network); The sale of WVTM and KNSD to NBC was finalized in July 1996. In November 1996, the station changed its on-air branding from "Alabama's 13" (which it adopted in 1991) to "NBC 13". Media General ownership On January 9, 2006, NBC Television Stations announced that it would place four of its smaller-market owned-and-operated stations—WVTM, WJAR-TV in Providence, Rhode Island, WCMH-TV in Columbus, and WNCN in Raleigh, North Carolina—up for sale. On April 6, 2006, NBC Universal and Media General announced that the latter would purchase WVTM-TV as part of a $600 million four-station deal between the two companies. Due to clauses in the FCC's regulations for television duopolies that prohibits any broadcasting company from owning two of the four highest-rated television stations within the same media market, Media General subsequently announced that it would it seek a buyer for its existing station in the Birmingham-Tuscaloosa-Anniston market, WIAT (which it had owned since the group's merger with Park Communications in 1997, and was instrumental in that station becoming more competitive with WVTM and WBRC), choosing to keep WVTM, which at the time was the higher-rated of the two stations