the United States. But NBC's standing in the area was deemed unsatisfactory, as WSVN was the third-ranked affiliate in the market (behind WTVJ and WPLG). As a result, NBC decided that it needed to acquire its own station in the growing South Florida metropolitan area. The network got its chance at doing so in the late 1980s, when Kohlberg Kravis Roberts put WTVJ on the market. NBC's then-corporate parent General Electric purchased that station in 1987, but WTVJ's affiliation contract with CBS was not set to expire until December 1988. CBS was willing to let WTVJ out of its contract one year early. However, Ed Ansin was not interested in letting NBC out of its affiliation agreement with WSVN, which also expired at the same time; Ansin even made an unsuccessful petition to the FCC to stop NBC's purchase of WTVJ. He wanted channel 7 to air NBC's strong fall 1988 lineup, which included NBC Sports' coverage of Major League Baseball's World Series and the Summer Olympics, along with most Miami Dolphins games as part of NBC's National Football League package. As a result, NBC was forced to run WTVJ as a CBS affiliate for more than a year, with all of the NBC shows that were preempted by WSVN airing on WTVJ instead. This situation did not sit well with either network. Ansin made an offer to take the CBS affiliation, but CBS turned the offer down. Instead, CBS bought Miami's longtime independent station and original Fox affiliate, WCIX channel 6, even though that station had an inadequate signal in Broward County (WCIX's transmitter was located in Homestead, farther southwest than those of other Miami area stations, to avoid signal interference with WCPX-TV (now WKMG-TV) in Orlando and WPTV). In May 1988, Ed Ansin filed an antitrust lawsuit against General Electric/NBC and CBS, one week after he had claimed that CBS backed out of contract negotiations to affiliate with WSVN. With WCIX planning to switch to CBS at the start of 1989, Fox began negotiations with other area stations to carry its programming. It ultimately reached an agreement with Sunbeam Television to affiliate with channel 7. Fox affiliation On January 1, 1989, South Florida's first network affiliation switch occurred, with NBC moving to WTVJ full-time, WCIX switching from Fox to CBS, and WSVN taking the Fox affiliation. Channel 7 had far fewer network shows to preempt as a result,