WPGH-TV
On December 6, 2017, it was reported that Sinclair and Fox were working on a deal that would see its Fox affiliates renew their affiliation agreement in exchange for Sinclair selling some of its Fox affiliates directly to Fox Television Stations. The deal would see between six and ten Fox affiliates owned by Sinclair and Tribune (all in markets with an NFL team) become Fox owned-and-operated stations. It is not known if WPGH-TV will be one of the stations sold, although the stations being sold to Fox are expected to be from Tribune Media (notably KCPQ in Seattle, where Sinclair already owns KOMO-TV), many of which were previously owned by Fox. A sale to Fox would make WPGH-TV the third O&O station in the Pittsburgh market alongside KDKA-TV and WPCW. It was later reported that sister station WPNT might be included in the deal as well. On May 9, 2018, Sinclair announced that seven Fox affiliates would be sold to FTS, but WPGH-TV was not included and an affiliation renewal was announced for that station instead, keeping WPGH-TV and WPNT with Sinclair.
SF Broadcasting
All of the stations acquired by SF Broadcasting had been affiliated with NBC, with the exception of WVUE, which was affiliated with ABC. As a result of Fox's interest in the stations, all four switched their affiliations to Fox; around this time, in the wake of the network's acquisition of broadcast rights to National Football Conference television package from the National Football League, Fox sought to upgrade its affiliates in major markets with an NFC franchise. The affiliation deal that resulted from the purchase gave Fox upgrades for the home markets of the Green Bay Packers (in the home market of WLUK) and the New Orleans Saints (in the home market of WVUE), giving Fox VHF affiliates in eleven of the fifteen markets with a team in the NFC. The purchase was challenged by NBC, which filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission on September 23, 1994, alleging that News Corporation had improperly set up a shell corporation to circumvent FCC limits on the amount of capital that a foreign company is allowed to invest in an American television station in order to gain control of the network's Green Bay affiliate WLUK. NBC withdrew its petition against the SF Broadcasting acquisition on February 17, 1995.