Black TV Station Owner DuJuan McCoy Talks Power of Media Ownership

Photo illustration by ABNN

ATLANTA (ABNN) - DuJuan A. McCoy says Black media ownership is not just about having a seat in the industry. It is about owning the platform.

McCoy, owner, president and CEO of Circle City Broadcasting, has spent more than three decades in television. He started in sales after graduating from Butler University in 1989 and said he never left the industry.

In an interview with ABNN, McCoy said his path to ownership was built through experience, discipline and years of learning how the television business works.

"Equity to me is not necessarily money," McCoy said. "Equity is time spent."

For McCoy, that meant moving from market to market, building credentials and learning the business from the inside. But he said ownership became his path after he was repeatedly passed over for general manager jobs.

"I started owning because I couldn't become a general manager at a good company," McCoy said.

McCoy said he enrolled in the NAB Leadership Foundation's Broadcast Leadership Training Program, which taught broadcast executives how to buy television stations, work with banks, talk to private equity firms and understand the financial side of station ownership.

That training helped him get into the ownership game.

McCoy said he bought seven television stations in West Texas for about $3 million, including Fox affiliates in San Angelo and Abilene. He said he later sold those stations for $21 million.

"I just focused on winning and focused on operating those TV stations," McCoy said.

McCoy said he did not know at the time that the purchase made history.

"I didn't know it, but I became the first African American to own a Fox affiliate in America and the first African American to own a major Big Four affiliate in the state of Texas," McCoy said.

He later expanded, buying stations in Evansville, Indiana, and Lafayette, Louisiana, before selling them to Byron Allen in 2019 for $165 million.

McCoy then moved into the Indianapolis market with Circle City Broadcasting. Earlier this year, Circle City closed on its $83 million acquisition of WRTV, the ABC affiliate in Indianapolis, from The E.W. Scripps Co. The company also operates WISH-TV and WNDY-TV in Indianapolis.

For McCoy, the larger issue is not just business success. It is what ownership means at a time when Black ownership in media remains rare.

He said being one of the few Black entrepreneurs buying and operating television stations brought responsibility.

"Since I was the only one in the game, that was a responsibility that I took very, very seriously," McCoy said.

McCoy said he did not build his career by waiting for someone to open the door. His advice to younger people in broadcasting, business and media is direct.

"Nobody is going to give you anything," McCoy said. "Everything that I've gotten, I've earned."

He said young professionals have to be coachable, ask for feedback, find mentors and understand that ownership requires sacrifice.

"My advice to anybody, whether you're Black, brown, white, is do the work," McCoy said. "Put the work in."

For Black entrepreneurs and media professionals, McCoy's story is a reminder that representation matters, but ownership changes power.

It is one thing to work inside the industry. It is another thing to own the stations, set the standards and control the future.