exception of wooing the Kings away from channel 41 after a decade, that station initially failed to spend adequately on programming and did not attract much attention in the market. KSHB-TV local programs included the Kings—who . At the same time, the station's regional cable coverage was waning. At the end of 1985, the cable systems in Wichita, Kansas, and Lincoln, Nebraska, removed channel 41 from their lineups, citing program duplication to other services; the loss of the Royals, the original reason for their addition in Wichita; copyright fees the systems paid to broadcast the distant station; and poor reception of KSHB-TV by microwave. KSHB became a charter affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company when that network launched on October 9, 1986. The station had stronger programming with more first-run shows as a result of the Fox affiliation and a changing syndication market. Wormington retired at the end of 1992, capping a 22-year run at channel 41 in which he had started and led the station, helped found the National Association of Independent Television Stations, and risen to vice chairman of the Fox affiliate board of governors. Wormington's replacement was Charlotte Moore English, the first woman and first Black person to be a general manager in Kansas City broadcast history. English oversaw the rollout of a full-length local newscast, which debuted on August 1, 1993. As an NBC affiliate On May 23, 1994, as a result of Fox outbidding CBS for the rights to partial rights to the National Football League, New World Communications reached an agreement with Fox parent News Corporation in which the latter company purchased a 20 percent equity interest and reached a multi-year affiliation agreement with New World. Under the terms of the deal, New World would affiliate most of the twelve television stations that the company had either owned outright or was in the process of acquiring—specifically those affiliated with one of the "Big Three" networks—with the Fox network, once individual affiliation contracts with each of the stations' existing network partners expired. The only NBC affiliate among the twelve stations was WDAF-TV. Earlier in the month, New World had announced the purchase of WDAF-TV from Great American Communications alongside three other major-market stations. The result was that NBC needed a new affiliate in the Kansas City market and KSHB-TV was left without a network affiliation. Scripps owned three Fox affiliates, all of which lost the