• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, March 16, 2009

As expected, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has become the first major American newspaper to suspend its print publication and go to all-digital distribution, according to Hearst, which owns the newspaper Web site. (MediaPost will henceforth refer to newspapers which go online-only as "news sites.") 

The move--effective Tuesday, when it prints its final edition-- foreshadows similar moves by other big regional daily newspapers in coming years, as well as some outright closures.

The move will obviously involve a new mission, according to Steven R. Swartz, president of Hearst Newspapers, who said that "Seattlepi.com isn't a newspaper online--it's an effort to craft a new type of digital business with a robust, community news and information Web site at its core."

Swartz added: "The Web is first and foremost a community platform, so we'll be featuring new columns from prominent Seattle residents, more than 150 reader blogs, community databases and photo galleries."

Despite the positive spin, Frank A. Bennack, Jr., Hearst's vice chairman and chief executive officer, acknowledged that the move to digital distribution constituted a setback: "The P-I has a rich 146-year history of service to the people of the Northwest, which makes the decision to stop publishing the newspaper an extraordinarily difficult one."

What wasn't mentioned, however, is the massive cutback in staff, which will leave the newsroom a ghost of its former self. The P-I had 181 employees, but the Web site will employ about 20 in the newsroom operation and another 20 to sell ads, per the AP. That leaves The Seattle Times, as the sole mainstream daily in the city.

One of the big questions hanging over the Seattle P-I, and the newspaper industry in general, is whether newspaper Web sites can continue to attract the same number of readers if they are deprived of content generated for the print edition. The reporters retained for the online-only version can increase their output to a point, but it will be difficult to match the sheer volume produced in the past.

Furthermore, the online traffic trends at the Seattle P-I Web site were headed in the wrong direction between January 2008 and January 2009: According to Nielsen Online, the Web site's 1.8 million unique visitors in February 2009 represent a 20% drop from the same month in 2008. (This could, however, be a post-election slump.)

On the other hand, the Seattle P-I was one of the most heavily trafficked Web sites in the country for a newspaper of its size, in proportion to its former circulation of 117,572. Other big regional dailies have even better proportions.

With an average weekly circulation of 185,829, the Boston Globe's Web site Boston.com attracted 8,534,000 unique visitors in February--about 45 times the circulation figure, compared to 15 times for the Seattle P-I.