A similar merger has already been completed in Chicago between Chicago Public Media and the Chicago Sun-Times. The DRC/KERA merger, which I have written about before, was completed last summer.

Nieman Lab notes that more people are reading, more staff have been hired, but ....

But management departures and rocky union negotiations have also marked the transition. And a membership drive last fall noted that membership revenue wasn’t covering the losses that occurred after the Sun-Times’ digital paywall was dropped.

Oops.

The bottom line is the bottom line.

For the DRC, there's also another issue. If you go digital-only? You're no longer a "paper of record" for government legal notices. And, there is another print Paper in Denton County. Now, the small weekly Pilot Point Post-Signal would look almost like a caricature if it had city of Denton, Denton County, Denton ISD and other legals, as it would be 50 percent classified ads some weeks.

But, the paper has a history of being aggressive on legal ad chasing.

So, watch out what you wish for, Bill Patterson. And, I've written before about Pilot Point doing just that. I've also noted the Wrecked Chronic looks in print kind of like a CNHI paper.