(therefore, resulting in WTEV remaining a sister outlet to WAWS) after the sale was completed on September 15. It effectively made High Plains Broadcasting a front company or "shell corporation" for Newport Television, similar to the existing relationships between the Nexstar Broadcasting Group and Mission Broadcasting and the Sinclair Broadcast Group and Cunningham Broadcasting. This arrangement also placed WAWS in the unusual position of being the senior partner as a Fox-affiliated station in a virtual duopoly with a CBS affiliate (the Fox station normally serves as the junior partner in most virtual or legal duopolies involving a Fox affiliate and a Big Three-affiliated station). WAWS is the only television station in the Jacksonville market that has never changed its primary network affiliation. Cox Media Group ownership On July 19, 2012, Newport Television announced the sale of WAWS and WTEV-TV to the Cox Media Group, in a four-station deal that also involved the sister duopoly of Fox affiliate KOKI-TV and MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYT-TV in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The sale to Cox placed WAWS and WTEV under common ownership with the company's radio station cluster in Jacksonville (WOKV (690 AM and 106.5 FM, now WXXJ), WFYV-FM (104.5, now WOKV-FM), WJGL (96.9), WXXJ (102.9, now WEZI) and WAPE-FM (95.1)) as well as Cox's Orlando duopoly of ABC affiliate WFTV and independent station WRDQ. Due to the very same rules that forced the license of WTEV to be transferred to a separate licensee back in 2008, Cox acquired WAWS outright and transferred WTEV's license assets to Bayshore Television, LLC, which then entered into a joint sales agreement with Cox. The FCC approved the transaction on October 24, and the three companies involved finalized the deal on December 3. On August 26, 2014, Cox announced its intention to change WAWS' call letters to WFOX-TV, contingent on FCC approval, through a request made to the agency on July 30. In an email to The Florida Times-Union, general manager Jim Zerwekh stated that the change would better reflect the station's status as one of Fox's ten strongest affiliates. The use of the callsign differs from other stations that incorporate their network partner's name into their call letters—a usage originated by the coastal flagship owned-and-operated stations of ABC, NBC and CBS based in New York City and Los Angeles. However, the WFOX calls were not used by Fox for its O&O in New York City, which bears the calls