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. 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. Sale to Paxson Communications In September 1996, shortly after it became a CBS affiliate, Fant Broadcasting sold WNAL-TV to Paxson Communications (now Ion Media), which initially intended to turn it into a charter owned-and-operated station of the infomercial-focused Infomall TV Network (inTV). However, Paxson continued to operate the station as a CBS affiliate after the sale was completed, as its affiliation contract with CBS did not expire until April 1999. On January 13, 1998, the station changed its call letters to WPXH, purportedly in preparation of becoming the Birmingham market's charter owned-and-operated station of Pax TV (later i: Independent Television, now Ion Television), although Pax would not be available over-the-air in the market when the network debuted on August 31, 1998 due to channel 44's existing contract with CBS. That year, the station moved its transmitter facilities to a tower near Inland Lake and Oneonta in Blount County. In September 1998, Nielsen merged the Tuscaloosa and Anniston–Gadsden markets back into the Birmingham market as a result of the consolidation of WCFT, WJSU, and WBMA-LP into Birmingham's ABC affiliate two years earlier, which expanded the designated market area to encompass nearly the entire width of the state, stretching from the Alabama–Georgia state line westward to the