not launch for another month), resulting in WKBD's newscast falling to fifth place in the timeslot, a problem exacerbated by frequent preemptions and delays from the local sporting events WKBD held the rights to. In 2001, WKBD began producing an 11 p.m. newscast for WWJ-TV. (Discussions of WKBD's news department producing news for WWJ had been underway prior to the CBS-Viacom merger of 1999; at least one dress rehearsal of a channel 62 newscast had been conducted before the merger.) WKBD tried to brand its own newscast as a younger, more unconventional program and WWJ-TV's as a more traditional Big Three O&O-style newscast (resulting in Makupson and her co-anchor at this point, Rich Fisher, being assigned solely to WWJ's newscast, to allow for WKBD's newscast to target a younger demographic). However, the two stations used the same anchors, reporters and equipment; this resulted in one newspaper critic, Tom Long of The Detroit News, decrying both newscasts as being the "attack of the clones". After going through several name changes to coincide with the changes in ownership and network affiliations over the years and enduring continued low ratings (as well as being the last news operation inherited from Paramount that Viacom was still operating), the station's news department was shut down in December 2002 (WKBD's newscasts were called UPN Detroit Nightside by this time) after having existed in one form or another for 34 years (rumors had surfaced in September of that year). The newscast that the station produced for WWJ-TV was canceled as a result of the discontinuance of channel 50's in-house 10 p.m. program, the byproduct of that being that WWJ-TV became the only owned-and-operated station of one of the four major networks (CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox) without any news programming. ABC affiliate WXYZ-TV then entered into a news share agreement with WKBD to continue producing a 10 p.m. newscast for the station that would be produced at WXYZ's Southfield studios and would feature some of WKBD's former news staff, but many longtime Channel 50 employees simply lost their jobs; the WXYZ-produced 10 p.m. broadcast was canceled in 2005. As a result, WKBD no longer broadcast news programming at 10 p.m., with the time slot being filled by off-network syndicated shows, such as repeats of sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family, for the next 15 years. No news programming aired on the station until February