company formally announced the launch of the new network, the Fox Broadcasting Company, on May 7, 1986, with the former Metromedia stations serving as its nuclei. The purchase of the Metromedia stations was approved by the FCC and finalized on March 6, 1986, with News Corporation creating a new broadcasting unit, the Fox Television Stations, to oversee the six television stations in April 1986. Consequently, through the purchase, WFLD became one of the charter owned-and-operated stations of the Fox Broadcasting Company when the network launched seven months later on October 9. Following the sale to Fox, the station—which began branding on-air as "Fox 32"—continued to compete aggressively in the market, acquiring off-network syndicated programs such as Family Ties and The Cosby Show for its schedule. The station also migrated its operations into its current facility at 205 North Michigan Avenue in 1986, while also expanding its news presence with the launch of its news department in August 1987. The station's continued to carry its cartoon block on weekday afternoons, and top-rated off-network sitcoms in the evening hours; it also added more first-run talk and court shows. Although it was now part of a network, as was the case with other Fox stations during the network's early years, Channel 32, for all intents and purposes, continued to be programmed as a de facto independent station as Fox's initial programming consisted solely of a late-night talk show, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers; even when Fox launched its prime time lineup in April 1987, the network only aired programs during that daypart on Saturday and Sundays early on; Fox gradually debuted additional nights of programming over the next six years until it adopted a seven-night-a-week schedule in September 1993. Until Fox began airing programming on a nightly basis, WFLD aired a movie at 7 p.m. (initially at 8 p.m. until 1988) on nights when network programs did not air. The afternoon and Saturday morning animation blocks were replaced by the network-supplied Fox Children's Network block (later known as Fox Kids) in September 1990. During the mid-1990s, WFLD continued to strengthen its programming schedule with acquisitions such as The Simpsons, Home Improvement (which later moved to rival station WGN-TV in September 2001), and Seinfeld (which eventually moved to sister station WPWR, and later to WCIU-TV). In 1997, after several years of being known on the air as "Fox 32" (although it began to