 Following an aborted sale of Tribune to Sinclair that ended in a lawsuit centering on the latter's unwillingness to comply with FCC directives to sell conflicting Tribune-owned properties in markets where Sinclair already operated stations, on December 3, 2018, Nexstar Media Group announced it would acquire Tribune—including the five former New World-owned Fox stations then under its purview—in an all-cash deal worth $6.4 billion ($4.1 billion, plus $2.3 billion in debt).The deal was approved by the FCC on September 16, 2019 and was completed three days later on September 19; the deal resulted in Nexstar inheriting Tribune's status as the largest owner of Fox-affiliated stations by total market coverage (combining the ten Fox stations it acquired from Tribune with Nexstar's 31 existing affiliates—primarily located in small and lower-ranked mid-sized markets—that it owned directly or operated through outsourcing agreements) and, incidentally, placed the five ex-Tribune stations involved in the Fox/New World affiliation agreement under common ownership with KHON-TV, which was involved in the Fox/SF Broadcasting agreement.On November 5, 2019, Nexstar announced that would sell WITI and the Seattle sister duopoly of Fox affiliate KCPQ and MyNetworkTV affiliate KZJO to Fox Television Stations for $350 million, in exchange for Fox's Charlotte duopoly of WJZY/WMYT-TV; the deal would make WITI a Fox owned-and-operated station for the second time in its history.