an identical situation—and the news plans were canceled. The news came with a gut punch, the very day the station took delivery of a fleet of news vans. Most of those hired as part of the aborted operation—around 20 people that were already hired and several others, including some on-air personalities, that made commitments to join the staff—were either able to re-sign in their previous positions at other stations or were placed by the group in positions at other Fox Television Stations properties. The end of CBS's network's affiliation agreement with KDFW was July 1, 1995; the result was that KDAF remained a Fox affiliate through the 1994 NFL season. CBS, though, never pursued channel 33 as an affiliate. After approaching longtime NBC affiliate KXAS-TV (channel 5) and later being turned down for an affiliation deal by its then-owner LIN Broadcasting, on September 14, 1994, Gaylord Broadcasting reached an agreement to affiliate KTVT with CBS, in exchange for also switching its sister independent station in Tacoma, Washington, KSTW, to the network. On November 15, 1994, Fox Television Stations announced that it would sell KDAF to Greenwich, Connecticut-based Renaissance Communications for $100 million; in exchange, Renaissance would sell existing Fox affiliate KDVR in Denver to Fox Television Stations for $70 million. Under the terms of the deal, Renaissance also reached an agreement with Time Warner in which KDAF would become an affiliate of The WB once the Fox affiliation moved to KDFW. This resolved a problem created by the affiliation switch for The WB. Gaylord had signed a group affiliation agreement for KTVT, KSTW in Seattle, and KHTV in Houston to join The WB at launch in January 1995; however, Gaylord's pact to affiliate with CBS in the first two markets effectively nullified the agreement, resulting in Time Warner filing an injunction in an attempt to dissolve the pact. Since KDAF could not join the network until KDFW's contract with CBS expired and Fox moved its programming to that station, The WB entered into a temporary affiliation arrangement with KXTX-TV to serve as its local affiliate in the interim. The de facto trade of Dallas and Denver stations hit a roadblock that nearly prevented the exchange from taking place. On January 15, 1995, NBC filed a petition to the FCC that called on the agency to reject approval of the KDVR purchase, alleging that News Corporation, with its Australian-born CEO Rupert