highest-rated stations in a single market (the FCC only recognizes ownership of facility identifications and not a station's call sign or intellectual property, and as such Raycom's ownership of both KHNL and KGMB, once it moved to channel 5, would be allowed as the overall viewership of channel 5, as KFVE, fell outside the criteria that would have otherwise barred a duopoly between KHNL and KGMB if facility IDs were traded as well). The SSA took effect on October 26, 2009, at which point KHNL dropped its "NBC 8" branding in favor of simply branding by its call letters (KGMB and KFVE, who swapped dial positions on that date, adopted similar branding approaches as well). An estimated 68 positions from a total of 198 between the three stations would be eliminated as part of the agreement. On March 2, 2011, KHNL's high definition feed began to be carried by DirecTV on channel 13. This left KFVE as the only station in the market whose HD feed was not offered by the satellite provider, it was carried by DirecTV only in 4:3 standard definition and widescreen SD (KFVE's HD feed was later added on February 29, 2012). Removal from Nielsen ratings Beginning in 2016, the Hawaii News Now (HNN) group of KGMB, KHNL, and KFVE severed ties to the Nielsen ratings. After the November 25 sweeps, Raycom opted to use other research to track KHNL and KGMB audiences. KFVE, owned by HITV, is affected also. In Hawaii, Nielsen does not use electronic means to track audiences. Recently, only 914 of the printed Nielsen booklets, known as monthly diaries, were completed out of 11,400 diaries. KITV and KHON will continue to use Nielsen ratings. Sale to Gray Television On June 25, 2018, Atlanta-based Gray Television announced it had reached an agreement with Raycom to merge their respective broadcasting assets (consisting of Raycom's 63 existing owned-and/or-operated television stations, including KGMB and KHNL), and Gray's 93 television stations) under the former's corporate umbrella. In the cash-and-stock merger transaction, valued at $3.6 billion, Gray shareholders would acquire preferred stock currently held by Raycom. Because Raycom operates three stations in the Honolulu market, the companies were required to sell either KHNL, KGMB or KFVE to another station owner in order to comply with FCC ownership rules. On November 1, 2018, Nexstar Media Group—which has owned Fox affiliate KHON-TV since January 2017—announced that it would acquire KFVE