In April 1986, WXNE and the other two CBN-owned stations — KXTX-TV in Dallas and WYAH-TV (now WGNT) in Portsmouth — were put up for sale. That August, News Corporation announced that it would purchase channel 25, with plans to make it an owned-and-operated station of its Fox Broadcasting Company. Fox had been in preliminary negotiations to secure an affiliation with either WSBK or WLVI, but ended its pursuit of both outlets. Until the sale was completed, channel 25, upon the Fox network's startup on October 9, 1986, did not air the network's inaugural program and what was then its lone offering, "The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers", a late-night talk show that aired opposite "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" on NBC. The outgoing CBN ownership believed that the program did not fit its strict content guidelines. Fox instead contracted Boston radio station WMRE (1510 AM, now WMEX) to carry the audio portion of "The Late Show" in the interim.