to the Viacom Television Stations Group—the owned-and-operated stations division of CBS—in December 2004 for $285 million. This created a duopoly with then-UPN affiliate KMAX-TV (channel 31). In order to remain under ownership limits for radio stations in Sacramento, Viacom sold San Francisco radio station KFRC (610 AM). While operations of KMAX-TV moved in with KOVR in West Sacramento, resulting in the layoffs of 11 newly redundant employees, $7 million was spent on capital improvements at the studios, where some of the equipment had not been replaced since AnchorMedia built the facility 15 years prior. Though speculation emerged at the time of the sale that CBS might abolish the early prime scheduling that KOVR had used for a decade, thereby bringing the station in line with its other West Coast outlets, CBS ultimately preserved the practice and even expanded it by shifting weekend programming up an hour in 2006. News operation Local news started with the station in 1954; the original news department consisted of three full-time employees and a part-time photographer, with Mel Riddle as news anchor and editor. In the early years, the station provided extensive film footage of events and used its remote vans to cover such events as flooding in Marysville. Traditionally, KOVR's newscasts placed third in the Sacramento market. At times, not even KXTV and KOVR combined could equal KCRA-TV's news ratings. Newscasts were produced from both the Stockton and Sacramento studios, and the geographic distance between the news crews sometimes hampered the functioning of the news operation. Even though KOVR's news budget often exceeded that of KXTV, KOVR typically tied that station or was narrowly edged out. In the 1990s and early 2000s, despite a general lack of investment from Sinclair—which stripped the station of its helicopter and satellite truck and abandoned having a weeknight sports anchor—and a comparatively underresourced position, the lean KOVR news operation began to show signs of improvement and increased ratings. In 1994, longtime KCRA-TV anchor Stan Atkinson moved to KOVR and presented the station's weeknight newscasts until his retirement in 1999. As part of Viacom's remake of KOVR's news department, Sam Shane, a former KCRA-TV anchor who spent two years at MSNBC, was hired to anchor the station's newscasts, and personnel were shuffled on other programs; a 4 p.m. newscast was also added. Between 2006 and 2010, KOVR surpassed KXTV in morning and early evening news. In 2018, KOVR began