The size of CCME's float doesn't seem to bother the shorts who are able to borrow tons of shares.
Buying back stock and retiring it would reduce the amount of shares that seem to be available for shorting.
Are you guys seriously worried about the ability of institutions to take positions here? The daily volume is 350k shares/day over the past 3 mos and has spiked to nearly 1MM on several occasions.
If volumes were a tenth of that I might agree, but I think your fears are misplaced.