million on January 10, 1994, with the intent of moving its programming there the following January. That summer, Howard Shapiro hired Neal Sabin—former program director at WPWR-TV (channel 50)—as WCIU's vice president and general manager, who decided to remake WCIU into a general entertainment independent station. Univision assumed ownership of WGBO in August 1994, but was forced to run that station as an independent station for five months afterward as WCIU's affiliation contract with Univision did not expire until the end of the year. On December 31, 1994, WCIU switched to an English language general entertainment format full-time and rebranded as "The U". In the spring of 1995, WCIU and low-powered sister station W23AT (channel 23, later WFBT-CA; now WWME-CD) moved their operations from the Chicago Board of Trade building into a studio facility at 30 North Halsted Street in Chicago's Near West Side community. Upon the conversion, channel 26 picked up most of WGBO's syndicated programming inventory, along with newly purchased shows that were not carried by any of the other Chicago stations; it also moved its remaining ethnic programming to WFBT. Channel 26's programming began to feature mostly classic sitcoms and drama series (such as The Munsters, Gilligan's Island, Hogan's Heroes, The Rockford Files and Leave It to Beaver). The station also revived the horror/sci-fi movie showcase Svengoolie, which had previously run in the market on WFLD (channel 32) in two different incarnations between 1970 and that station's conversion into a Fox owned-and-operated station in 1986; Rich Koz—who reprised the role he previously played in WFLD's Son of Svengoolie for WCIU's revival of the showcase—also co-hosted the station's New Year's Eve relaunch celebration on December 31, 1994, alongside controversial talk show host Morton Downey Jr. (who himself hosted a short-lived talk show on the station, Downey, which briefly aired nationally on CNBC later in 1995) and served as one of the "U'z Guys," a group of hosts for various blocks of the station's programming. Initially, the station continued to run the Stock Market Observer from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and entertainment programming in all other weekday timeslots and throughout much of the broadcast day on weekends. WCIU then added a weekday block of children's programs from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. in March 1995. On February 19, 1995, WCIU signed a multi-year agreement with The WB to carry the network's children's program block, Kids' WB, upon its debut