deal was closed on April 1, 2004when local marketing and joint sales agreements were established between the two stations. Although the ABC affiliate was the junior partner, WFXV and WPNY-LP were consolidated into WUTR's studios in Deerfield. This station aired The Bill Keeler Show (a local late-night comedy series) from April 1, 2003, to 2005 when the program moved to WKTV. Prior to the DTV transition, WFXV filed an application with the FCC to relocate its transmitter southwest of Utica to a tower on Skyline Drive in Clinton, a village of Kirkland. However, this proposal was ultimately denied by the FCC. WFXV's broadcast became digital-only, effective March 16, 2009. On June 15, 2016, Nexstar announced that it has entered into an affiliation agreement with Katz Broadcasting for the Escape, Laff, Grit, and Bounce TV networks (the last one of which is owned by Bounce Media LLC, whose COO Jonathan Katz is president/CEO of Katz Broadcasting), bringing the four networks to 81 stations owned and/or operated by Nexstar, including WFXV and sister station WUTR. On April 1, 2020, the antenna changed to reflect the switch over from UHF channel 27 to 34 on March 13, 2020, at 12 p.m. Programming WFXV clears the entire Fox schedule, with Xploration Station broadcast on weekday mornings. Syndicated programming on WFXV includes Maury, The Big Bang Theory, Mom and Modern Family among others. News operation In September 2001, WFXV entered into a news share agreement with WKTV (then owned by Smith Television). This arrangement resulted in a prime time newscast at 10 to debut on this station. Known as NewsChannel 2 on Fox, the show aired every night for a half-hour and mirrored programs seen on WKTV. The broadcast was supposed to originate live from WKTV's Smith Hill Road studios in Deerfield but there were technical problems beaming the show to WFXV's facility in Rome through microwave relay. Sometimes, personnel had to record the newscast in advance and physically deliver the videotape to this station which was a thirty-minute drive. When the outsourcing contract ended on August 31, 2004, WFXV decided not to renew it. The prime time broadcast moved to WKTV's cable-only WB affiliate "WBU" (now CBS affiliate WKTV-DT2) the next day and reduced to weeknights. Today the newscast airs on CW affiliate WKTV-DT3 as NewsChannel 2 at 10 and can be seen for thirty minutes. After WUTR's acquisition by Mission Broadcasting, speculation began