affiliate on January 11, 1995, when it initiated a rather informal charter affiliation with The WB at that network's launch. Channel 47 initially carried the network's family-oriented prime time shows (such as 7th Heaven, The Parent 'Hood, Smart Guy and Sister, Sister) and, beginning with its debut that September, animated series from the network's children's program block, Kids' WB, on weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings. However, because of LeSEA Broadcasting's ministerial structure, the strict content guidelines that the group maintained for secular programs carried on its stations resulted in KWHB refusing to clear prime time network shows that contained strong profanity, violent or sexual content (such as Unhappily Ever After, Savannah, Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer) on the belief that they would offend the sensibilities of channel 47's mostly Christian and Evangelical viewership; these programs were substituted with either ministry and televangelist programs or secular syndicated programs already in LeSEA's inventory or sports. Originally, this was not a significant issue as the preempted programs could be seen in the market via the superstation feed of Chicago WB affiliate WGN-TV (now standalone cable channel NewsNation) on most of the area's cable and satellite providers. Local cable provider TCI dropped WGN from its lineup on December 31, 1996, when WGN, The Nashville Network and BET were removed to make room for five channels not previously carried on TCI's Tulsa system (Cartoon Network, TLC, Animal Planet, ESPN2 and HGTV). While this cut off access to the KWHB-preempted WB programs carried on the superstation feed to TCI's approximately 170,000 subscribers in the Tulsa area, it remained available locally on Heartland Cable Television, DirecTV, Dish Network and PrimeStar. WGN was particularly vulnerable to removal as it had lost access to much of the Chicago Bulls' 1996–97 game schedule due to a dispute between its Tulsa-based distributor, United Video Satellite Group (co-founded by Ed Taylor and Roy Bliss, founders of local TCI predecessor Tulsa Cable Television), and the National Basketball Association (NBA) over WGN's carriage of the team's telecasts outside of the Chicago market (TCI did not include its Oklahoma systems among those that retained the WGN national feed per an agreement reached with United Video that December, which kept the channel available on TCI in five Midwestern states). The WB began to regret affiliating with a conservative religious station because of LeSEA's pre-emption policies, and began making plans to move its programming elsewhere. Muskogee-based