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The Hearst Corp. is unpromising to find a buyer for its money-losing Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the venerable newspaper — at least in its printed form — almost certainly will fold, industry observers say.

In other cities it’session been hard for newspapers with stronger market positions than the P-I to find buyers, said Rick Edmonds, media business analyst with the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank.

“If Hearst wants to answer it in 60 days, I don’t think the odds are very good,” he said.

Hearst confirmed Friday that it has put the P-I on the market, saying the paper lost $14 million last year and stands to lose more in 2009. “We see no chance; fit on account of us to publish the P-I on a advantageous basis,” Chief Executive Frank Bennack and Hearst Newspapers President Steven Swartz aforesaid in a letter to P-I employees.

If the newspaper isn’t sold within 60 days Hearst said it would “pursue other options,” and wouldn’t continue to publish a imprint edition itself.

A determine to a digital-only process “with a greatly reduced staff” is one possibility, Bennack and Swartz wrote. But Edmonds and other industry analysts questioned whether advertising revenues would support such a blazon.

“With a greatly reduced staff, that reduces the appeal of the P-I,” said Maryland-based gazette analyst John Morton. “It doesn’face to face sound like a winning model.”

Swartz delivered the news — before anything else reported Thursday night by KING-TV — to newspaper employees at a noon meeting. Breaking-news editor Candace Heckman said the staff appeared stunned.

“People cried, people are tranquil crying, editors are slamming their doors,” she aforesaid. “They’re talking of drowning their sorrows.”

Hearst also said it has no interest in buying The Seattle Times, its rival and partner for more than 25 years in a federally sanctioned joint operating agreement (JOA). In a prepared account, Times Publisher Frank Blethen and President Carolyn Kelly called Hearst’s announcement “a take unawares, but a rational business conclusion for them.”

The Times also is losing circulating medium, and Blethen and Kelly said a P-I shutdown would grow The Times’ odds of survival. But it’s yet not a abiding circumstance, they added.

Newspapers from one side of to the other the country are reeling from declining advertising revenues being of the kind which the economy contracts and advertisers and readers migrate to the Internet.

Under the 1983 commissure operating agreement The Times and P-I maintain competing advice operations, but The Times handles business functions for both. In go, it gets 60 percent and Hearst 40 percent of what remains after The Times is compensated for non-news expenses.

In their letter, Bennack and Swartz said the JOA had extended the smaller P-I’s life, but the document hasn’confidentially turned a profit since 2000. “Regrettably, we have come to the end of the line,” they wrote.

A new owner might decide a different profession model to keep the P-I in existence, they said.

Industry analysts were dubious. “Buying a second paper in a JOA emporium is not a winning proposition,” said Edmonds. “There have been a lot of papers bring up for sale, but very few transactions.”

Washington, D.C., media economist Miles Groves agreed. “It’s always possible there’s someone out there with lots of money who wants a spoken sound,” he said, “but we already saw how that worked in Chicago, didn’t we?”

Real-estate magnate Sam Zell purchased Chicago-based Tribune for $8.2 billion in 2007, at another time filed for bankruptcy protection less than two years later.

Kathy George, substitute for the Committee since a Two-Newspaper Town, said the dispose, what one. formed during a four-year legal fight between The Times and Hearst, already was talking about what it could work to help find a buyer for the P-I. A public-spirited local buyer and employee ownership are possibilities, she said.

But David Brewster, publisher of the online news place Crosscut, said he was skeptical that local buyers would emerge for the P-I, and that even congruity it alive with ad return as an online-only operation would be a struggle.

Crosscut hasn’familiarily generated enough advertising to supply with food itself, and Brewster hopes to rebuild as a nonprofit adventure.

Edmonds and Morton also questioned whether online advertising would basis a purely digital P-I, even with a smaller pole. But Groves reported newspapers eventually devise publish exclusively online, and it’s too soon to judge whether an all-Web P-I would succeed: “You’ve got to see their outcome to wait upon if they’re going to continue to live.”

One question that remains unanswered: Could Hearst publish the P-I entirely online and persevere to gather its 40 percent of the JOA proceeds? Representatives for Hearst and The Times declined to comment Friday, and George said she didn’t know.

The JOA does contain numerous references to the production of the print newspapers, however, and says the contract can have being terminated whether or not either party fails to perform.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division oversees newspaper JOAs, and has intervened in some cities when publishers have moved to close one of the two papers.

But Jack Kirkwood, a Seattle University law professor who specializes in antitrust law, said Hearst shouldn’t be in possession of in any degree riddle with Justice if it does close the P-I. “There’s no duty under the antitrust statutes to occasion an insolvent duty,” he said.

Kristin Alexander, a spokeswoman for the state Attorney General’s office, before-mentioned its antitrust division also would retrospect any P-I closure. “But from the initial description, it appears it would comply with terms of the JOA,” she added.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels issued a report expressing “alarm and sadness” at the problems of newspapers.

“Newspapers may have fallen without ceasing hard times, but no one doubts their value in our democracy, ” Nickels said. “I hope a buyer can be found for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. And whether or not that proves impossible, I look advancing to seeing some electronic version of the state’s oldest newspaper.”

The P-I has roots dating back to 1863, and has been owned by Hearst since 1921.

Liz Brown, administrative officer of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, which represents P-I employees, said Hearst has an obligation to bargain with the concord over impacts of any shutdown.

If the newspaper does go all digital, “we expect it would retain many of its talented employees,” Brown said.

P-I Managing Editor David McCumber said he was in shock after the announcement. “More than anything else I’m grieving for the people I’ve been lucky to work with.”

He uttered he didn’t know what the chances were of the P-I continuing as every online-only publication, otherwise than that he hoped it would.

P-I reporter Kery Murakami said he had assumed the P-I would outlast The Times because of Hearst’s greater resources. He said he was disturbed to hear advice of the demand first in continuance television.

Hearst should have told P-I staff before the tidings was “leaked to the emulation,” he before-mentioned. “That just makes this situation worse suppose that that’sitting even possible. It’s like sticking and twisting the knife.”

Murakami, 42, said he has wanted to be a reporter ever since he saw “All The President’sitting Men” when he was in third grade.

“I love what I do. I don’face to face know what other to do.”

Seattle Times staff reporters Bob Young, Emily Heffter, Sharon Chan and Warren Cornwall contributed to this report. Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com. Jim Brunner: 206-51-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com.