Updated at 6:20pm Eastern
When DuJuan McCoy first began his career in broadcast media following his 1989 graduation from Butler University, he took a job as an account executive for WTTV-TV in his hometown of Indianapolis. In the years since, he has bought and sold TV stations in Texas, completed the NAB Leadership Foundation’s Broadcast Leadership Training program, and in April 2019 agreed to purchase two stations in Indiana’s largest market from Nexstar Media Group as part of a FCC-required divestment.
Now, McCoy’s Circle City Broadcasting is poised to grow beyond the pair of properties it has owned for six years with a just-announced deal for Indianapolis’ ABC affiliate. It’s a station that The E.W. Scripps Co. acquired in a multi-station deal exactly 14 years ago.
As the summer of 2011 began, Terry McGraw, the CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies, had finally responded to analysts’ queries across several quarterly earnings calls about why the company had not considered selling off a non-core business — its broadcast television unit.
With four properties comprised of ABC affiliates in Indianapolis, Denver, San Diego and Bakersfield and low-powered television signals in the markets outside of Indiana, the company elected to retain Morgan Stanley & Co. and move forward with a sale of the stations. Strong buyer interest was predicted by financial analysts at the time.
On October 3, 2011, McGraw-Hill found a buyer for its KMGH-TV in Denver, KGTV-TV in San Diego, KERO-TV in Bakersfield, and WRTV-TV in Indianapolis. It was Scripps, which agreed to pay $212 million for those properties and LPTVs serving Denver, Fort Collins, and Colorado Springs, Colo.; San Diego; and Bakersfield. Scripps CFO Tim Wesolowski and then-President/CEO Rich Boehne signed off on the agreement. At the time, given the interest rate environment, Scripps intended to finance the transaction by taking on additional debt, allowing the company to preserve its financial flexibility. The move was key to making the McGraw-Hill deal happen, as Scripps as of August 31, 2011, had just $153 million in cash on its balance sheet.
McGraw-Hill had owned the four full-power stations since June 1972, some 19 months after it agreed to pay what in today’s dollars would be $476 million from Time-Life. As January 2012 began, McGraw-Hill’s nearly 40 years as a TV station owner concluded.
AN AFFILIATION SHIFT BRINGS HAPPY DAYS
At the time McGraw-Hill purchased what is today WRTV, its call letters were WFBM-TV; it was a NBC affiliate. In those days, affiliates weren’t so proud as a peacock as ABC rose across the 1970s on the strength of Monday Night Football and situation comedies such as Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. In Indianapolis, the ABC affiliate was owned by the family that owned the Columbus Dispatch newspaper and WBNS-AM & FM & TV in Columbus, Ohio. ABC wanted more in Indiana.
ABC was eager for a change at its Indianapolis TV station, and made an offer to McGraw-Hill. It said yes, with the NBC affiliation of Dispatch’s WTHR-TV swapping with the ABC affiliation of WFBM in June 1979. The switch led WFBM to adopt the WRTV call letters.
As WRTV, McGraw-Hill competed vigorously against Dispatch’s WTHR. It also challenged WXIN-TV “FOX 59” under the ownership of Outlet Communications, Chase Broadcasting, and Tribune Broadcasting; WTTV-TV under River City Broadcasting and Sinclair ownership; and former LIN Broadcasting flagship property WISH-TV during its CBS affiliation. With Scripps ownership of WRTV, later ownership changes and affiliation shifts would alter the marketplace. The most significant of these Indianapolis TV market moves involved the purchase of Tribune by Nexstar, a transaction that required the sale of two Indianapolis TV stations in order for the deal to meet regulatory approval.
The buyer of WISH-TV and WNDY-TV? DuJuan McCoy, who paid $42.5 million for a pair of stations that would be reborn under his Circle City Broadcasting. The agreement saw WISH’s CBS affiliation go to WTTV, making WISH an affiliate of The CW Network while WNDY retained its MyNetwork TV alignment. For WISH, an expansion of local and statewide news was seen; that content remains emblematic of what WISH has accomplished under Circle City ownership.
While that growth brought concerns to Scripps and WRTV’s ability to grow ratings and revenue for its local programming, Nexstar’s FOX 59 by February 2022 was dominating the ratings among adults 25-54, based on Nielsen data from that time period. In June 2024, a leadership change transpired for WRTV, as Charlie Grisham was hired from WSIL-TV in Cape Girardeau, Mo., to serve as VP/GM in Indianapolis.
Grisham hit the ground running. With sales experience that includes key roles at KUSI-TV in San Diego and KSDK-TV in St. Louis, he emerged as one of the nation’s most outspoken advocates for local television consumption and advertising. In April, he gained national attention for developing an entire marketing campaign based on the premise that, as ‘Big Tech’ is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising, brands and services should follow their lead because local TV works.
With a team of 15 under the direction of Grisham and Senior Director of Sales Tony Hoffman, WRTV appeared to be making an aggressive push to drive revenue at a station that has been a ratings laggard against WTHR-13 (today a TEGNA property poised to become a Nexstar station) and Nexstar’s WTTV-4 and WXIN-59.
A CORPORATE DEBT REDUCTION MOVE
Today, WRTV is poised to enter its next chapter. It is likely the result of the Cincinnati-headquartered company’s opportunities to tackle its outstanding debt, and getting what several market observers speaking anonymously to RBR+TVBR call an exceptional valuation on the station.
With third-quarter operating results due November 6 from Scripps, the company’s stock has struggled over the last three months after reaching a 52-week peak of $4.15 per share. As of 2pm Eastern on Tuesday, “SSP” was priced at $2.4850. It has seen a 73.4% decline in value over the last five years.
Scripps President/CEO Adam Symson noted on the company’s second quarter earnings call that accelerating debt paydown would be a key focus for Scripps across the remainder of 2025. Station swaps and “select asset sales” were mentioned on the call.
For investors, the visibility for Q3 given by Scripps in early August was impacted by $125 million of political advertising seen in the same three-month period of 2024. Local Media revenue, in particular, is projected to be down in the mid-to-high 20% range and is expected due to the poor comps.
While Q3 core revenue is strong, the WRTV sale will undoubtedly boost Scripps’ efforts to reduce its debt, even as it builds out its Scripps Sports arm and continues to grow its digital multicast networks and Ion Networks, too.
Now, the question may simply be what other “select asset sales” are ready to be announced.
