being the station's Promotions Director from early 1979. With WDEE gone and its only competitor in the country format being Windsor, Ontario's CKLW-FM (which focused its programming on the Canadian side of the border), WCXI became very popular for a year or two. However, WCXI took a hit once WWWW changed its format from album-oriented rock to country in 1980, becoming (apart from CKLW-FM) Detroit's first live country station on FM since WDEE-FM a decade earlier. (WCAR-FM was automated country in 1977 until it became WTWR in early 1978.) To better compete with W4 Country, WCXI/WTWR-FM's owner, Gene Autry's Golden West Broadcasters, again changed Top 40/oldies-formatted WTWR to WCXI-FM, and was programmed separately from the AM - but simulcasting Deano Day for a short time when he returned again to the station after a brief run in Los Angeles in early 1982. WCXI-FM was unable to beat W4. New owner Fritz Broadcasting changed format in May 1986 to adult contemporary as WNTM (later becoming WVAE and then WMXD). In the meantime, WCXI was sold to Shamrock Broadcasting, owners of W4, on the same date as the FM station and continued to suffer from low ratings through the 1980s. By the latter part of the decade, the station had adopted the "Real Country" branding and began to focus more on classic country. Finally, in 1992, WCXI became WWWW, staying with country music but now simulcasting WWWW-FM. The Fan WWWW changed its call letters to WDFN in May 1994, and on July 11 of that year, it became a sports-talk station branded as "The Fan". For much of its run in the format, WDFN competed with WXYT (1270 AM), and later WXYT-FM (97.1), for Detroit's sports-talk audience. WDFN affiliated with Fox Sports Radio in May 2003. Before then, it was affiliated with ESPN Radio. The station was the Detroit outlet for national radio broadcasts of NFL games via Westwood One, including Sunday and Monday Night Football, NFL postseason games, and the Super Bowl from 1997 through 2004. When the Detroit Lions were not playing that Sunday, it would occasionally air the afternoon doubleheader. The WCAR call sign is now in use at AM 1090 in the Detroit suburb of Livonia, Michigan, which airs a sports format. AM 1160 in Fenton, Michigan now uses the WCXI call letters, and can be heard in much of the Metro Detroit area. WDFN's afternoon program, Stoney