Circle City vs. DISH & DirecTV: Seventh Circuit Affirms Dismissal

DuJuan McCoy’s Circle City Broadcasting lost its lawsuits against DISH Network and DirecTV. A federal judge in the Southern District of Indiana granted summary judgment to both satellite providers on March 31, 2023, and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed on April 16, 2024, holding that Circle City produced no evidence that race motivated the providers’ refusal to pay the retransmission fees the company sought for WISH-TV and WNDY.

What Circle City Alleged

Circle City bought WISH-TV and WNDY from Nexstar Media Group in 2019 for $42.5 million.¹ Nexstar’s existing retransmission agreements did not transfer with the sale, so Circle City had to negotiate new deals with pay-TV distributors from scratch.²

Those negotiations went badly. DISH initially offered zero dollars, then made a last-minute offer Circle City characterized as “pennies per subscriber.”³ DirecTV said it did not pay retransmission fees to standalone non-Big Four stations and offered to carry the channels for free.¹ Circle City also alleged DirecTV had specifically excluded the company by name from “change in control” provisions in its contracts.

In March 2020, Circle City sued DISH in federal court in Indianapolis under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, the Reconstruction-era statute that bars racial discrimination in contracting.⁴ A parallel case followed against AT&T Services and DirecTV.⁵ The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters joined as a party.⁶ The core theory: both providers had paid Nexstar meaningful fees for the same two stations, but refused to pay comparable amounts once a Black owner held them.²

Why the District Court Dismissed the Cases

Chief Judge Tanya Walton Pratt had initially let the DISH case proceed. In March 2021, she denied DISH’s motion to dismiss, finding Circle City had pleaded enough to support “at minimal, a circumstantial case for intentional discrimination.”⁶

Discovery changed the picture. On March 31, 2023, Judge Pratt granted summary judgment to both DISH and DirecTV, finding “nothing in the record” tying the providers’ negotiating decisions to race.⁵ The court rejected the premise that Circle City and Nexstar were “similarly situated.” Nexstar controlled hundreds of stations, including Big Four network affiliates, and its leverage in retransmission negotiations reflected that scale. Circle City held two non-Big Four stations and did not.¹

The DISH ruling also flagged an awkward fact for the discrimination theory: the DISH negotiator who handled the Circle City talks was a Hispanic woman married to a Black man, and McCoy himself had described her conduct as “polite, civil, and courteous.”¹

The Seventh Circuit’s Ruling

McCoy appealed. The Seventh Circuit consolidated the two cases (Nos. 23-1787 and 23-1788), heard argument in Chicago on January 24, 2024, and issued a unanimous decision on April 16, 2024, affirming both dismissals.⁷ Judge Scudder wrote the opinion, joined by Judges Wood and Lee.

A § 1981 plaintiff must show that race was a “but-for” cause of the harm. The court held Circle City had no direct or indirect evidence meeting that standard.⁸ DISH and DirecTV, by contrast, had produced what the panel called “clear evidence of a race-neutral reason for their contractual negotiating decisions”: the disparity in bargaining power between a two-station independent and a national broadcasting group.⁹ The providers’ positions were, in the court’s phrase, “lawful business choices responsive to dynamics of the television broadcast market.”¹⁰

Circle City pressed a pretext argument, pointing to inconsistencies in what the defendants said during negotiations. The panel called that “speculation,” holding that pointing to possible inconsistencies is not the same as showing the adverse decision was because of race.⁷

One unsettled legal question went unresolved. Whether a corporation can bring a § 1981 discrimination claim based on the race of its majority owner remains open in the circuit; the court assumed without deciding that Circle City qualified as a proper plaintiff and resolved the case on the merits instead.⁷

Where Circle City Stands Now

Circle City had separately reached retransmission agreements with Comcast and Charter Communications, though at lower rates than Nexstar had previously obtained.¹ In March 2026, the FCC granted the company a waiver of its two-station cap to acquire WRTV, the ABC affiliate in Indianapolis, from Scripps for $83 million, concluding that common ownership of WISH, WNDY, and WRTV would “not harm competition in the Indianapolis DMA, but bolster it.”¹¹ The deal closed in April 2026.¹²

1
NextTV. Federal Judge Dismisses Circle City Discrimination Suits Against DirecTV, Dish
2
Indianapolis Business Journal. WISH-TV Sues Dish TV Amid Claims of Racial Discrimination
3
WISH-TV. McCoy Asks Appeals Court Let AT&T, Dish Network Discrimination Cases Be Heard
4
CourtListener. Circle City Broadcasting I, LLC v. DISH Network, LLC
5
Indianapolis Business Journal. WISH-TV Owner Loses Discrimination Suits Against AT&T, DirecTV, Dish
6
The Indiana Lawyer. Judge Rejects Dish TV’s Motion to Dismiss WISH-TV Discrimination Lawsuit
7
FindLaw. Circle City Broadcasting I, LLC v. AT&T Services, Inc.
8
The Indiana Lawyer. WISH-TV Owner Loses Appeal Against Dish, DirecTV Over Alleged Racial Discrimination
9
Inside Indiana Business. Appeals Court Rejects WISH-TV Owner’s Racial Discrimination Claims
10
Indianapolis Business Journal. Federal Appeals Court Rejects WISH-TV Owner’s Racial Discrimination Claims
11
The Indiana Lawyer. FCC Clears Way for WISH-TV Owner to Acquire ABC Affiliate WRTV
12
WISH-TV. Circle City Broadcasting Expands Local Programming on WRTV With Three New Weekend Shows