air in August 1998, when a crane that was erecting a nearby studio-to-transmitter link (STL) tower collapsed onto WLVI's studio building. Though no one was injured and the damage was confined to the station's office spaces, the incident resulted in several hundred thousand dollars worth of damage. The station used a satellite truck for a network programming downlink and studio space at WCVB-TV (channel 5)'s facilities in Needham for its 10 p.m. newscast. In the late 1990s, WLVI twice attempted to court rights to be the flagship station of the Boston Red Sox. A proposal was put together and initially agreed with Kevin Dunn, who headed a $67 million bid, but investors pulled out, and the Red Sox ended up spending three seasons on WABU (channel 68). Three years later, Kevin Dunn was successful in obtaining the rights through a company known as JCS on a two-year contract. However, the JCS partnership ended in financial failure, and WFXT displaced JCS and WLVI after just one year when JCS could not come up with the full 1999 rights payment. CW affiliation and Sunbeam purchase On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner's Warner Bros. Entertainment (the division that operated The WB) announced that they would dissolve UPN and The WB, and combine UPN and The WB's most popular programs alongside new series on a newly created network, The CW, which launched September 18, 2006. The network signed 10-year affiliation agreements with 16 of Tribune's 19 WB affiliates, including WLVI, even though CBS owned WSBK. As this was going on, however, Tribune was attempting to improve its balance sheet as part of a "performance improvement plan" that called for $500 million in asset sales. On September 14, 2006, four days prior to the launch of The CW, Tribune Broadcasting announced that WLVI would be sold to Sunbeam Television, owner of then-NBC affiliate WHDH-TV, for $117.3 million. The sale was announced to employees the day some received new "Boston's CW" business cards. The sale received FCC approval in late November 2006, creating the Boston market's third television duopoly (after CBS-owned WBZ-TV and WSBK, and Hearst-owned WCVB-TV and Manchester, New Hampshire-based WMUR-TV). Tribune continued to operate WLVI until December 18, 2006, when the final Tribune-produced newscast aired. The sale to Sunbeam took effect the following day. In buying WLVI, it acquired the license, transmitter facility, and programming rights. Except for a few technicians,