or primary affiliate stations in the United States, and another 65 stations aired some UPN programming as secondary affiliates. Although it was considered a major network by Nielsen for ratings purposes, UPN was not available in every American television market. In some areas, UPN programming was shown off-pattern by affiliates of other networks (airing immediately after programming from their primary network on some Fox and WB stations, or during overnight timeslots on major network affiliates) or by otherwise independent stations, such as in the case of KIKU-TV in Honolulu, Hawaii. Some affiliates were also known to extensively preempt network programming in order to broadcast local sporting events. By 2003, UPN had an estimated audience reach of 85.98% of all U.S. households (equivalent to 91,689,290 households with at least one television set). In contrast, The WB was viewable in 91.66% of all U.S. television homes. This is mainly because UPN did not have wide distribution in areas ranked below the top 100 Nielsen-designated media markets, whereas The WB operated The WB 100+ Station Group – a cable-only station group that was launched by the network in September 1998 – to provide broad coverage to those markets (from January 1995 to October 1999, The WB's programming was carried over the superstation feed of the network's Chicago affiliate WGN-TV through a programming agreement with its owner Tribune Broadcasting). Despite the fact that UPN would not be able to have extensive small-market coverage at launch due to a lack of commercial television stations in those areas, Paramount Television denied Advance Entertainment Corporation permission from distributing the network's programming over the WWOR EMI Service, the superstation feed of New York City affiliate WWOR-TV, preventing the network from reaching markets without an exclusive or secondary UPN affiliate. The network proposed launching a cable-originated service to increase its distribution to markets without an over-the-air affiliate in July 1998; however, the service, which was to have been named UPN Plus, ultimately never launched. UPN did have one cable-only affiliate in its station form, WNFM-TV in Fort Myers, Florida, which joined the network in 1998. In markets where Viacom had a CBS/UPN duopoly after its 2000 merger with CBS, the UPN station was used to air CBS network programs if local sporting events or extended breaking news coverage would air on the CBS station, sometimes resulting in UPN programs being pre-empted outright, as the CBS-owned outlets were usually the