showing cartoons during the 3–4 p.m. hour. On January 16, 1995, WEYI and WNEM-TV traded network affiliations, resulting in WEYI becoming an NBC station. This came as part of the larger U.S. television network affiliate switches of 1994 that saw CBS' longtime affiliate in adjacent Detroit, WJBK, switch to Fox. CBS was having trouble getting a replacement affiliate in Detroit after it failed to affiliate with WXYZ-TV (which renewed its affiliation with ABC as part of a deal that caused three other stations to switch to the network) and WXON-TV (WDIV was not an option as that station was in the middle of a long-term affiliation contract with NBC, and neither was former Fox outlet WKBD-TV due to its owner Paramount Stations Group making it a UPN charter affiliate); it ultimately landed on WGPR-TV (channel 62, now WWJ-TV), which at the time broadcast at very low power and was practically unviewable outside Detroit's inner ring. Since WNEM's VHF signal penetrated further into Detroit's outer suburbs than WEYI's UHF signal, CBS persuaded WNEM's owner, Meredith Corporation, to switch to CBS. It is one of the few known instances during this period where CBS moved its affiliation from a UHF station to a VHF station. The last CBS program to air on WEYI was the CBS Sunday Night Movie presentation of Presumed Innocent on January 15, 1995 at 9:00 p.m., while the next day, the first NBC program to air was Today at 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time. Television Station Partners sold WEYI along with WROC and WTOV to Smith Broadcasting in 1996. On January 16, 1997, the WEYI license was transferred to Smith Broadcasting subsidiary Sunrise Television. From October 4, 1999, to September 2001, the station added The WB as a secondary affiliation, airing its programming overnight. In January 2002, Sunrise and LIN TV agreed that LIN would take over the station under a Local Marketing Agreement. By March, Sunrise sold the station to LIN with FCC approval granted in April 2002. LIN agreed to sell WEYI to Barrington Broadcasting in January 2004; the sale was approved by the FCC in March 2004. In 2004, three years after WEYI ended its secondary WB affiliation, Barrington Broadcasting launched WB affiliate WBSF in the same market which was offered over-the-air on WEYI-DT2 and cable. The deal was made primarily because WKBD declined to carry Detroit Pistons basketball after the games switched to WDWB which