WGRZ-TV nearly lost its NBC affiliation in 1994 when NBC's parent company, General Electric, announced plans to purchase King World Productions, the then-owner of CBS affiliate WIVB-TV (channel 4). Had it occurred, WIVB-TV would have become an NBC owned-and-operated station. However, the deal never materialized, and WIVB-TV was sold to the LIN TV Corporation after attempts to sell that station to Westinghouse Broadcasting, New World Communications, Tribune Broadcasting, Paramount Stations Group and the E. W. Scripps Company fell through; as a result, the Buffalo market was one of the few areas to not be affected by the affiliation switches that took place between late 1994 and late 1996. (Coincidentally, King World would eventually be acquired by CBS in 2000, who merged the company into ViacomCBS' CBS Television Distribution (now CBS Media Ventures) in 2007; CBS and Viacom had broken up at the time of King World's dissolution.) However, WGRZ "did" lose the local rights to the Buffalo Bills to WIVB-TV when the NFL returned to CBS in 1998 after the network acquired the rights to the American Football Conference package. That ended a 33-year run for Channel 2 as the Bills' unofficial hometown station. Presently, WGRZ airs Bills games when they are featured on NBC's "Sunday Night Football".