to speculation of a sale of WHDH radio; on December 1, the station was sold to Atlantic Radio, putting it under the same ownership as rival talk station WRKO. (Mugar would sell WHDH-TV to Sunbeam Television in 1993.) Atlantic Radio made an attempt to distinguish WHDH and WRKO in 1993 by relaunching WHDH as an "information station", with the feature-oriented Boston This Morning premiering in the morning drive slot on March 8; nine months later, on December 16, it was replaced with News All Morning, a news block competing against WBZ. Conversely, the station began to air a talk show hosted by Boston Herald columnist and one-time WRKO midday host Howie Carr on October 4, 1993, airing in afternoon drive against WRKO's Jerry Williams. During this time, Atlantic transferred hourly CBS Radio Network newscasts from WRKO to WHDH; additionally, Atlantic merged with two other radio groups, Stoner Broadcasting Systems and Multi Market Communications, on November 1 to form American Radio Systems (ARS). On August 15, 1994, American Radio Systems announced the purchase of WEEI (590 AM)'s intellectual property (call letters, programming, and staff) from Back Bay Broadcasters, who had acquired WEEI from the Boston Celtics back in March. ARS then announced plans to move WEEI to the stronger 850 AM, replacing WHDH. ARS concurrently moved the Rush Limbaugh and Howie Carr shows, in addition to the "Skyway Patrol" traffic report brand, from WHDH to WRKO. The Money Experts, a daily financial talk show also previously heard on WHDH, would move to WBNW, a new business talk station that would take over WEEI's old frequency. WHDH's final broadcast, on August 28, 1994, concluded at midnight with "Taps" and the sound of a flushing toilet; these were played by a disgruntled board operator who was laid off in the transition, and subsequently led to a formal apology from ARS. WEEI (850 AM) SportsRadio 850 As part of this complex transaction, ARS changed the station's format to sports radio on August 29, 1994, rebranded the station "SportsRadio 850 WEEI", and reassigned on- and off-air personnel; the WHDH call sign was officially changed to WEEI on August 31. In effect, this new WEEI (850 AM) became the successor to the previous WEEI (590 AM), which had changed its call sign to WBNW on August 25, 1994. WEEI simulcast with WBNW for a week before WBNW debuted its business news format. With the move to