Although the transfer of WBRC to the trust was finalized on July 24, 1995, Fox could not switch WBRC's network affiliation in the short-term, as the station's contract with ABC would not expire until August 31, 1996. While this forced Fox Television Stations to operate WBRC as an ABC affiliate for 8½ months after its purchase of the station from the New World-established trust closed on January 17, 1996, creating the rare situation in which a station was run by the owned-and-operated station group of one network but maintained an affiliation with one of its competitors, it gave ABC enough time to find a new central Alabama affiliate. The network first approached WTTO for an affiliation agreement. However, Sinclair—which would not own any stations affiliated with either of the Big Three networks until it acquired River City Broadcasting in 1996—was only willing to carry ABC's prime time and news programming, as it was not interested in carrying the network's then-languishing daytime and Saturday morning programs. Even though WDBB operated a news department at the time negotiations with ABC began, Sinclair was also not willing to start a news department for WTTO; the group did not allocate a budget for news production for its non-Big Three stations at the time.