WHDH's NBC affiliation was set to expire at the end of 2016. Meredith Corporation and Nexstar Broadcasting Group were also reportedly interested in purchasing the station. NBCUniversal and Sunbeam denied these rumors. Sunbeam's Executive Vice President and former WHDH general manager Chris Wayland, stated that the company "fully [expects]" that it would renew WHDH's affiliation. The Boston Globe noted a history of hostility between NBC and Sunbeam, including its objection to NBC's late-1980s purchase of WTVJ in Miami to displace its own WSVN (which later defected to Fox), and the aforementioned conflicts surrounding The Jay Leno Show. On October 1, 2015, The Boston Globe reported that NBC had considered moving the affiliation to NECN, a cable channel, rather than to an over-the-air channel, although the company declined to comment. On December 15, 2015, New England One reported, citing internal sources, that NBCUniversal had declined to renew its affiliation with WHDH, and was beginning the process of building an English-language news operation at WNEU for its assumption of the affiliation. It also reported that WHDH meteorologist Pete Bouchard, who had left the station around the same time, had been poached by NBC for WNEU. Following the report, Paul Magnes, WHDH's vice president and general manager, told the Boston Herald that the station still expected the NBC affiliation to be renewed. Sunbeam owner Ed Ansin subsequently confirmed to The Boston Globe that NBC had informed him in September 2015, that channel 7's affiliation would not be renewed, and offered to buy the station for $200 million; however, he said that he would not consider any offers worth less than $500 million, and that any sale of WHDH would also include WLVI. Ansin said that NBC was "trying to steal our station," and confirmed that the network was threatening to shift its programming to WNEU, but that he still predicted that "we're going to be the NBC affiliate." Ansin believed that NBCUniversal's main motivation for these moves were to create further synergies with WNEU and New England Cable News for the purposes of advertising sales. Initial reports suggested that if WHDH were to lose NBC programming, Sunbeam would move the CW affiliation currently held by WLVI to channel 7. However, Ansin subsequently stated that WHDH would be operated as a news-intensive independent station if the NBC affiliation was lost; additionally, WLVI's own affiliation with The CW (a ten-year agreement made in 2006 with