(AURN News) — DuJuan McCoy spent 14 years working as a television sales director while watching other executives receive opportunities to become general managers.
He said those opportunities never came for him.
Instead of leaving television or waiting indefinitely for someone to recognize his abilities, McCoy created a different path.
“I was director of sales for 14 years and couldn’t get a general manager’s job,” McCoy told AURN News in part two of an exclusive interview.
McCoy had already spent years learning television from the business side. After graduating from Butler University in 1989, he began selling airtime at WTTV in his hometown of Indianapolis. He later worked in various television markets, building experience in advertising sales, revenue management and station operations.
But McCoy wanted more than another promotion.
He wanted ownership.
McCoy enrolled in the National Association of Broadcasters’ Broadcast Leadership Training Program, an executive-style course designed to teach experienced broadcasters how to purchase and operate stations.
The program covered areas employees may not learn while working inside a television station, including finance, accounting, private equity, banking and station acquisitions.
While still enrolled, McCoy found an opportunity to purchase seven television stations in West Texas.
He said he paid a little more than $3 million for the group, which included FOX affiliates in San Angelo and Abilene.
The purchase made McCoy the first African American to own FOX-affiliated television stations in the United States.
McCoy said he did not know he was making history when he completed the acquisition.
“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.
The accomplishment did not come during an easy economic period.
McCoy entered ownership as the country faced the 2008 financial crisis.
He continued with the deal, traveled between Houston and West Texas and worked to improve the stations.
McCoy said he purchased the group for about $3 million and sold it five years later for $21 million.
That record helped him attract additional investment and pursue larger television properties.
McCoy later acquired CBS and FOX stations in Evansville, Indiana, followed by NBC and FOX properties in Lafayette, Louisiana. In 2019, he sold the Bayou City Broadcasting portfolio to Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group.
He then became a TV station owner in his hometown.
Through Circle City Broadcasting, McCoy purchased WISH-TV and WNDY-TV in Indianapolis in September 2019.
On March 31, 2026, Circle City completed its $83 million acquisition of WRTV, the city’s ABC affiliate.
The man who could not get the general manager position he wanted now owns three television stations in the city where his career began.
“I didn’t wait for somebody to do something for me,” McCoy said. “I dug my own path.”
That path has made McCoy one of the most accomplished Black television station owners in the country. He has owned or operated more than 20 stations and now serves as chair of the NAB Leadership Foundation Board.
McCoy said his advice for people trying to build their own careers is straightforward.
“Put the work in,” he said.
He also encouraged younger professionals to remain coachable, seek honest feedback and find mentors willing to tell them the truth.
McCoy’s story is not powerful because barriers did not exist. It is powerful because he developed the knowledge, experience and financial relationships necessary to build something of his own.
When the door to the general manager’s office did not open, DuJuan McCoy did not stop.
He became the owner.
Click play to listen to the AURN News report from Jamie Jackson:
