Investors looking to buy the Seattle Post-Intelligencer would need at least US$1.5 million for losses per month, and would also need to buy up all the newspaper's assets, including its interest in its joint-operating agreement with The Seattle Times. But what the actual cost, the San Francisco Business Times reported Monday, is hard to say.

A buyer would need to have enough money to not only buy the Post-Intelligencer and its assets, but also to cover all its debt, Liz Brown, administrative officer of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, said she was told by Robert Broadwater, managing director of media investment banking firm Broadwater & Associates.

"It's kind of like porno, you know it when you see it," Brown told the Business Times of the sales price.

Hearst Corp., which owns the Post-Intelligencer, has set a deadline of March 18 for the newspaper to be sold before it closes the paper down. Hearst lost $14 million in 2008, with higher losses predicted for 2009. The papers newsroom budget is estimated at about $20 million a year, the Business Times reported.

"I think everybody realizes for the P-I to retain value, it really shouldn't have a period where it goes dark," said Brown, who consulted with Broadwater over a possible sale of the newspaper to a group of Post-Intelligencer employees, according to the Business Times.