in Terre Haute, Indiana.) The following year, channel 2 swapped affiliations with WABI-TV and joined NBC in order to match WCSH-TV; the two stations also began to share a secondary ABC affiliation (previously, ABC programming was only cleared on WABI). The ABC arrangement remained in place until 1965, when WEMT (channel 7, now WVII-TV) signed on as a full-time ABC affiliate. In its first decades on the air, channel 2 was best known as the home of Eddie Driscoll. He hosted many programs on the station including Weird, Dialing for Dollars, The Great Money Movie, and My Backyard. Driscoll was also known for his improvisation skills and sense of humor. He retired from WLBZ-TV in 1986, and died on September 24, 2006 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease. In the 1970s, WLBZ-TV added a repeater in Calais, W57AQ on channel 57, with a transmitter in Meddybemps shared with W61AO (which repeated WABI-TV). W57AQ allowed cable systems in Atlantic Canada to distribute WLBZ by a microwave link from the border, doubling or even tripling the station's coverage area and viewership. Most Canadian cable systems dropped WLBZ after 1996 once American television signals became available to them by satellite, with the last one doing so in 2010. Although a "flash-cut" to digital on VHF channel 8 was considered, it was instead decided to return the W57AQ license to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which deleted it on April 29, 2010. In 1981, WLBZ radio was sold off, becoming WACZ (it is now WZON); in 1997, the -TV suffix was dropped. In 1998, the Maine Broadcasting System (by this time controlled by the Rines-Thompson family) sold WLBZ and WCSH to the Gannett Company. In 2000, the station essentially began serving as a semi-satellite of WCSH, when commercials and network programming began to be played from Portland. However, as early as 1989, WLBZ had been reducing its personnel and consolidating some internal operations with WCSH. In 2002, WLBZ signed on a digital signal on UHF channel 25, bringing NBC's high definition programming to Eastern and Central Maine. WLBZ's broadcasts became digital-only, effective June 12, 2009. However, the station kept its digital operations on channel 25 until September 10, when it was moved to the VHF channel 2 space previously occupied by the analog service. In 2012, WLBZ's station logo was immortalized in a running sketch series for Saturday Night Live called "Maine Justice," a parody