Nobody wants CNHI

After Gray Media bought Raycom in 2018, the Retirement System of Alabama remained stuck with CNHI, formerly known by its original full name of Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.

CNHI has long been known as the bottom rung of larger sized newspaper ownership companies. Even as Gatehouse, I mean Craphouse, approaches official merger time with Gannett, even as Alden continues to slash and burn Dead Fucking Media, they still don't fully approach the craptaculartude of CNHI.

CNHI already had a bad reputation before 2009. I saw that 20 years ago in the greater Metroplex area when it ran two daily newspapers, Mineral Wells and Weatherford, with one publisher. No, no. Both papers would need to cooperate on press runs for special sections, etc. But, Mineral Wells needed a separate publisher, not a general manager.

But in 2009, the ground really shifted. In response to the Great Recession, CNHI started requiring one week of furlough every quarter from almost every employee.

And, it saved so much money, even as it drove quality further downhill, that it still continues to do that a full decade later.

The real deal is that, instead of furloughs, CNHI probably needed to file bankruptcy during the Great Recession, like so many other chains. But, given its state pension system ownership, it probably couldn't, for various legal reasons.

Other stupid things continue as well, as I can see from CNHI papers that are near me today.

First? Those Alabama golf course ads that insiders know are really CNHI house ads, as the courses are RSA owned, and make ZERO sense outside of Alabama. (Another sign of the stupidity of CNHI; I'm sure these are required ads, and probably a tax write-off for CNHI's parent as part of it.)

That said, the golf courses make almost zero money for the RSA. That's as golf continues to decline in interest among the under 40 crowd. Second, yes, a resort like WinStar may advertise gaming and concerts in some of your north Texas and southern Oklahoma papers, but their golf course doesn't. Is the Alabama golf ad part of why? Maybe.

Second, doing things like printing TV guide sections. Nobody who subscribes to daily papers, at least, reads those. Cut them and cut your print bills.

Of course, you're stuck with these problems. After Gray Television bought Raycom, RSA said it wanted to sell CNHI's papers, piecemeal if need be. RSA is obviously overvaluing them, cuz I ain't heard of any of them, at least not any great number of them, being sold to anybody.

Part of the overvaluing is probably that many CHNI small dailies need to be cut to triweeklies or something. Not facing that reality is part of why CNHI has them overpriced.