station in the United States and in the top ten of all independents, VHF or UHF, nationwide. In 1970, the station purchased a facility on Taconic Terrace in Woodlawn, Ohio, from the defunct K & S Films for use as a larger studio base. Sale to Metromedia Channel 19 was demonstrating success and attracting viewership, which made it an outlier in the U.S. Communications portfolio. In March 1971, the company suspended operations at its stations in Atlanta and San Francisco, and channel 19 had cut back its broadcast day in the second half of 1970. WXIX-TV came close to joining them in silence. On August 5, 1971, The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Communications had asked the FCC for permission to take channel 19 and WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh off the air. The two stations, however, got a reprieve because they had instead attracted potential buyers. It was initially announced that a Washington, D.C., communications law firm, Welch and Morgan, would buy the station, but AVC insisted on the buyers endorsing the $2 million in debt associated with channel 19, which caused them to balk at the deal. By month's end, Metromedia was in negotiations to purchase WXIX-TV, and a deal was reached in early October to purchase the station for the assumption of $3 million in liabilities. The FCC approved of the deal in August 1972. Metromedia was able to stabilize WXIX-TV, increasing its ability to attract quality programming and contributing its own productions. Furthermore, WXIX-TV started a commercial production division; as none of the other stations had entered this specialty, channel 19 was able to corner between 70 and 80 percent of this market in the Cincinnati area. In the late 1970s, the station's local programs included Cincinnati Stingers hockey games and a news magazine, In Cincinnati. While a second independent station began broadcasting in 1980, WBTI (channel 64) was a part-time subscription television station which had trimmed its ad-supported schedule to a handful of programs by 1983. Malrite ownership and the arrival of Fox In 1982, Metromedia entered into an agreement to buy WFLD-TV in Chicago. This $136 million deal—the most expensive purchase of an independent station and far and away the highest sale price of any UHF outlet—required it to divest of one of its two UHF stations, WXIX or KRIV in Houston, under the ownership limits of the day that allowed one company to own