The Hearst Corp plans to transform its ailing Seattle Post-Intelligencer into an online business, ending speculation about the fate of the 146-year-old newspaper as crumbling advertising wallops the industry.

The media giants plans to sell advertising on the products of partners from Yahoo to Google. The site will also host breaking news from City Hall, courts, blogs from prominent local residents, columns, and photo galleries, it said in a statement.

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, Frank Bennack, chief executive of the Hearst Corp, said.

Our goal now is to turn seattlepi.com into the leading news and information portal in the region.

Hearst spokesmen were not available for further comment. The newspaper's final print edition runs Tuesday.

Last week, Hearst -- which may also close the San Francisco Chronicle unless it can save money through layoffs and other cost cuts -- said it may grant provisional job offers to a small group of Seattle Post-Intelligencer employees at a smaller, Web-only version of the paper.

The Post-Intelligencer lost $14 million in 2008 and may lose more this year, Hearst had said.

The Seattle Times now becomes the only print newspaper remaining in the city. That paper is owned by the Blethen family, with Sacramento-based publisher McClatchy owning a minority stake.

(Reporting by Edwin Chan, editing by Maureen Bavdek)