M(S) MMM #196 --- RSA Lures a Tenant

     The New RSA Judicial Building on Dexter Avenue has its first tenant, and to no surprise it is one of the companies RSA funds, Community Newspaper Holdings Incorporated (CNHI).
     They own newspapers and magazines in 115 U.S. markets, including two North Alabama cities.
     The building is beautiful, by the way, It encases the old Alabama Supreme Court building, as if in a giant expensive jewelry box.
 


      The City of Montgomery convinced the company to move from Birmingham with an incentives package, and the president (Donna Barrett on the far right in the photo below) told me RSA head David Bronner's influence was "significant". (I'll bet! "Donna, this is David. Move!")
     Also in that beautiful building is some kind of computer facility for data storage, though it seems like a pretty pricey address for that purpose.

    CNHI's newspapers are mostly smaller weekly and daily papers, less beat-down by the Great Recession. Barrett says CNHI exceeds industry average profits. and that a handful of their papers are experimenting with a "pay-wall", requiring readers to pay to read online beyond a small number of free stories. If that doesn't work, "plan B" is to use the more traditional model of selling ads based on online readership, a much tougher row to hoe.
     CNHI says it has no plans to publish a paper here, but in the back of someone's mind has to be the acquisition of the The Montgomery Advertiser itself. With truly depressed media property prices these days, it would make sense for the company to own a paper where it lives, and the The Advertiser has been through the same staff reductions as other daily publications since 2009, and owner Gannett might be willing to sell.
     It is always a positive to have a company headquartered in Montgomery, including the 70 employees it brings. It is the second media company Bronner has brought to town. The other is Raycom Media, owner of WSFA in Montgomery and other broadcast properties.

[The Monday --and sometimes Saturday-- Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this website.]