and Tuesday evenings when the network launched (and would not carry five nights a week of programming until September 1998). It was one of three stations unaffected by the September 1996 affiliation switches that saw WBRC become a Fox owned-and-operated station, and its longtime ABC affiliation move to WBMA-LD (channel 58) and former CBS affiliates WCFT-TV (channel 33, now Heroes & Icons affiliate WSES) in Tuscaloosa and WJSU-TV (channel 40, now Heroes & Icons affiliate WGWW) in Anniston. In March 1998, WABM disaffiliated from UPN over concerns by Sinclair over ratings and monetary issues, as other stations owned by the company did in several additional markets following Sinclair's signing of a lucrative affiliation deal with The WB (which WTTO/WDBB affiliated with in an unrelated deal two years earlier). For five months, the station reverted to being an independent station, though the only effect on the station's schedule was the replacement of UPN programming with syndicated film packages during prime time and on Saturday afternoons, and infomercials taking the place of the network's UPN Kids block on Sunday mornings. In the interim, local cable providers began carrying the network's Secaucus, New Jersey/New York City-based flagship, WWOR-TV, to allow UPN programming to remain available in the Birmingham market; on the fringes of the market, the network was available only on cable systems through one of two out-of-market stations, WUPA in Atlanta and WGSA in Baxley/Savannah, Georgia, as most providers had dropped WWOR's "superstation" cable feed earlier in the decade due to the lack of interesting programming used to replace shows seen on the main WWOR signal after SyndEx rules went into effect, and the cable feed had been discontinued by satellite distribution rightsholder Advance Entertainment Corporation one year earlier and lent to Discovery Communications to increase national distribution for Animal Planet. However, the loss of UPN created a side effect for WABM, as it experienced a decline in viewership without a network affiliation. Complaints were also lodged to the station from vocal Star Trek fans whose only option for watching Star Trek: Voyager were either by seeing it through UPN affiliates from other markets over-the-air or on cable, a subscription to Dish Network, DirecTV or PrimeStar to receive distant UPN stations via the satellite providers' respective "superstation" packages, or through tape trading. Sinclair would eventually reach a new affiliation pact with the network for the stations which lost their UPN affiliations but