McCoy: ‘I Don’t Want to be a Big Operator’
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe owner and chief executive officer of Circle City Broadcasting Inc. says his goal is to create a distinct brand for local programming in Indiana. The company founded by DuJuan McCoy last year acquired WISH-TV and WNDY-TV in Indianapolis from Nexstar Media Group Inc. (Nasdaq: NXST). McCoy says he wants to make the stations the flagship for local news and sports.
In an interview on Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick, McCoy said he is looking to move away from a national trend in the broadcasting industry.
“What’s going on in the industry is a massive shift to consolidation and the bigger you get, the more opportunities that you have to scale down and do hubbing, if you will, and my model is not that,” said McCoy. “I don’t want to be a big operator; I like to be a locally-owned and operated broadcaster. And, for me, I call it a flanking opportunity from a marketing standpoint; I like to do what my competition is not doing because that’s an audience, locally, that’s being underserved right now.”
A graduate of Ben Davis High School and Butler University, McCoy says the time is right for more local programming, especially considering the way a lot of programming is consumed by the public.
“I think it’s really, really primed right now with the streaming services, the over-the-top services, the fact that you can get entertainment-type programming anywhere at anytime. (The) only thing that you can’t get streaming is local sports and local news, so I think there’s a niche and an opening for me here in the Indianapolis market.”
McCoy says his biggest challenge at the moment is dealing with major providers, such as AT&T, DirecTV and DISH Network, which he says do not like working with smaller, local companies. Circle City Broadcasting is currently in a retransmission consent dispute with the providers.
You can watch the full interview with McCoy in the video above.