In July 2026, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser presented Cathy Hughes with a Key to the City, recognizing a career that has helped shape Black media for nearly five decades.
Hughes arrived in Washington more than 50 years ago. She would go on to acquire a single AM radio station, build it into a national broadcasting company, take that company public, expand into television and digital media, and create one of the country’s most significant Black-owned media businesses.
Today, Hughes is the founder and chairperson of Urban One, a multimedia company whose businesses span radio, television, syndicated programming and digital media. As of the end of 2025, Urban One owned or operated 76 revenue-producing broadcast stations across 13 major Black markets, along with TV One, CLEO TV, Reach Media and a digital portfolio that includes Bossip, HipHopWired and MadameNoire.
The company says its platforms collectively reach more than 80% of Black America.
But when Hughes started, she was trying to solve a much more fundamental problem: who had the power to determine which stories Black audiences heard.
“I went into business to amplify the voice of the Black community,” Hughes said in a recent NBC Washington interview. “I was determined I would take the mute button off of us.”
That mission would ultimately lead Hughes from working in broadcasting to owning the platforms themselves.
From Omaha to Washington
Hughes began her radio career in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, before moving to Washington.
In 1971, she became a lecturer at Howard University’s School of Communications and worked at the university’s WHUR-FM. As general sales manager, Hughes helped increase the station’s revenue from $250,000 to $3 million in her first year, according to the National Association of Broadcasters.
She eventually became vice president and general manager, becoming the first woman to hold that position at a radio station in Washington.
Her time at WHUR also produced an enduring contribution to American radio.
Working with student DJ Melvin Lindsey, Hughes helped develop the Quiet Storm, the late-night format built around R&B and soul music that eventually spread to hundreds of radio stations.
But Hughes’ career would soon move beyond programming and station management.
She wanted ownership.
Buying WOL and Becoming an Owner
In 1980, Hughes purchased WOL-AM in Washington, establishing what would become Radio One.
Getting the deal financed was difficult. Hughes has recounted approaching dozens of financial institutions before finally securing the financing necessary to purchase the station.
The challenges continued after the acquisition. Hughes endured difficult early years as she worked to keep WOL operating and establish a viable business.
She also changed what the station offered.
WOL developed a talk format focused on Black politics, culture, information and community issues. Hughes herself became one of the station’s prominent voices, hosting programming and using the station to engage directly with listeners.
“Information is power” became a guiding message.
The station also gave Hughes something she had not possessed earlier in her career: control over the platform.
“I think that that’s crazy for us to be begging white-owned media to tell our stories,” Hughes said in her recent interview. “We have to own our own media to tell our own stories. We have to identify what’s important.”
WOL became the first piece of that ownership strategy.
Turning One Station Into Radio One
Hughes did not stop with WOL.
Radio One began acquiring additional stations and entering new markets. Hughes’ son, Alfred Liggins III, joined the company in the 1980s and eventually took responsibility for much of its day-to-day operation.
Liggins became CEO in 1997, while Hughes served as chairperson.
Together, they accelerated the company’s expansion.
Radio One acquired stations in markets including Atlanta, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Detroit and other cities, building a national radio business around audiences that Hughes believed mainstream broadcasters routinely underserved.
Then came another major milestone.
In 1999, Radio One went public.
The IPO made Hughes the first Black woman to chair a publicly traded corporation and gave the company greater access to capital as it continued expanding.
The family also maintained significant control over the company through its voting structure.
More than 25 years later, Hughes and Liggins continue to hold the majority of Urban One’s voting power. That has allowed the founder and her son to remain central to the direction of a company that has operated in the public markets since the end of the 1990s.
Public capital helped support a much larger vision for the business.
Radio One increasingly moved beyond individual radio stations and into other parts of the media industry.
Expanding Beyond Radio
One of those moves came through syndicated programming.
Radio One acquired a controlling stake in Reach Media, the company built around nationally syndicated radio personality Tom Joyner. Over time, Radio One increased its ownership position.
Today, Urban One owns approximately 94.6% of Reach Media, whose syndicated programming includes The Rickey Smiley Morning Show, Get Up! Mornings with Erica Campbell and The D.L. Hughley Show.
The expansion gave the company another way to reach listeners. Urban One could own radio stations while also producing programming distributed through stations it did not own.
Television created an even larger opportunity.
TV One launched in 2004 as a cable network focused on Black audiences. Comcast was an early partner in the venture.
Radio One subsequently increased its ownership of the network and, in 2015, purchased Comcast’s approximately 47.5% interest. By the end of that year, Radio One owned approximately 99.6% of TV One.
Comcast remained an important distribution partner.
The arrangement reflected another stage in the evolution of the company Hughes had started with WOL. Urban One was developing the ability to create programming, own media properties and distribute content across multiple platforms.
From Radio One to Urban One
By 2017, the Radio One name no longer fully described the business Hughes and Liggins were running.
The company had expanded across radio, television, nationally syndicated programming and digital media.
That May, on the 18th anniversary of its IPO, Radio One officially changed its corporate name to Urban One.
The company also continued building its digital portfolio.
In April 2017, it acquired Bossip, HipHopWired and MadameNoire from Moguldom Media Group. Those properties joined a digital operation serving Black audiences across news, entertainment, culture and lifestyle content.
Urban One had evolved from a company built around radio stations into an integrated media business.
Radio One provided local broadcasting. Reach Media provided nationally syndicated programming. TV One and CLEO TV provided television. iOne Digital extended the company’s presence across digital media.
Hughes’ original idea had expanded across successive generations of media.
Building a Company That Could Outgrow Its Founder
There is another part of Hughes’ business legacy that began long before Urban One.
Hughes became a mother at 17.
She has described the birth of her son as the moment she began thinking beyond herself.
“I realized I had purpose, I had responsibility, and I wanted to make that baby proud of me,” Hughes recalled.
That son would eventually become her business partner and successor in operating the company.
Liggins joined Radio One during its early years, took over day-to-day management and has served as CEO since 1997. Hughes remains founder and chairperson.
Together, they have overseen the company’s transition from a local radio business into a publicly traded multimedia company while maintaining family voting control.
That makes Urban One part of another important business story: succession.
Many founder-led companies struggle to build leadership beyond the person who created them. Hughes began transferring operating responsibility to Liggins decades ago, while remaining involved in the company’s leadership and mission.
Nearly Five Decades of Black Media Ownership
The media business Hughes entered in the 1970s bears little resemblance to the industry today.
Radio audiences have fragmented. Cable television has faced competition from streaming. Advertising has moved toward digital platforms and technology companies. Urban One itself has had to navigate those shifts as its traditional media businesses operate in an increasingly difficult environment.
Yet the company Hughes started in 1980 remains a significant owner and distributor of media serving Black audiences.
Urban One describes itself today as the country’s largest distributor of urban content. Its businesses extend across dozens of radio stations, two cable networks, national radio syndication and digital media brands.
For Hughes, the scale ultimately traces back to an idea she formed much earlier in her career.
Black communities needed the ability to determine which stories were important, who told them and how they reached an audience.
She decided ownership was one way to do that.
When Mayor Bowser presented Hughes with the Key to the City this summer, she described Hughes as a Washington legend who had created jobs, launched careers and opened doors while amplifying Black voices.
The recognition brought Hughes back to the city where much of that story began.
Forty-six years after acquiring WOL, she remains chairperson of the company that grew from it.
“Media is my calling. Service is my mission, and empowering my people is my passion,” Hughes said.
What began with one Washington radio station ultimately gave Hughes something much larger: a media company capable of carrying that mission across generations and platforms.
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