a presence in all of the markets he considered. On February 6, 2017, Louisiana Media Company exercised the option to sell WVUE's license assets to Raycom. Two months later on April 4, Raycom formally announced that it would purchase WVUE from the Louisiana Media Company for $51.8 million. Benson would continue to retain a stake in WVUE. Raycom management and Benson finalized the sale on August 8. Benson died several months later, on March 15, 2018; the Benson estate continues to maintain the minority stake in WVUE. Sale to Gray Television On June 25, 2018, less than a year after the full acquisition of WVUE by Raycom, Atlanta-based Gray Television announced it had reached an agreement with Raycom to merge their respective broadcasting assets (consisting of Raycom's 63 existing owned-and/or-operated television stations, including WVUE, and Gray's 93 television stations) under the former's corporate umbrella. The cash-and-stock merger transaction valued at $3.6 billion–in which Gray shareholders would acquire preferred stock currently held by Raycom–will result in WVUE gaining new sister stations in nearby markets, including CBS/ABC affiliate KNOE-TV in Monroe and NBC/CBS affiliate KALB-TV in Alexandria, in addition to its current Raycom sister stations. The combined company will be in every Louisiana market except for Lafayette as a result. The sale was approved on December 20, and was completed on January 2, 2019. Programming WVUE-DT currently carries the majority of the Fox network schedule, though like most news-heavy Fox stations, it delays the network's Saturday late night hour by a half-hour due to a 10:00 p.m. newscast. Channel 8 has aired Fox's prime time, late night, news, children's and sports programming since it joined the network in January 1996; the only regular exception has been Fox NFL Kickoff, which WVUE has declined carriage of since the Sunday pre-game show and Fox NFL Sunday lead-in moved to Fox from Fox Sports 1 in September 2015, due to its existing commitment to carry the "official" New Orleans Saints pregame show Saints Pre Game Live on Sunday mornings during the NFL regular season (the program is not carried at all in the New Orleans market, as Fox has not secured a substitute outlet among the market's minor network affiliates—either CW affiliate WNOL-TV (channel 38) or MyNetworkTV affiliate WUPL (channel 54)—to carry Fox NFL Kickoff). Syndicated programs broadcast by WVUE-TV include Rachael Ray, Wheel of Fortune, Live with Kelly and Ryan, Right This Minute, 25