It worked in Newark. Can it work in San Francisco?

Hearst is putting workers at the San Francisco Chronicle on notice that it could very well fold the paper unless it can move forward with significant cuts to its workforce of 1,500.

"Without the specific changes we are seeking across the entire Chronicle organization, we will have no choice but to quickly seek a buyer for The Chronicle or, should a buyer not be found, to shut the newspaper down,” reads a state from Hearst vice chairman and chief executive Frank Bannock and Steven R. Swartz, president of the chain's newspaper division.

While the statement leaves open the possibility of a sale, the prospects of finding a buyer would appear slim indeed, a point not lost on the paper's employees, who have followed the downsizing and folding of papers across the county over the past several years.

Hearst is on a short-leash timetable, too, giving workers weeks to agree to a much-reduced workforce.

Hearst claims the Chronicle lost more than $50 million in 2008, and the company anticipates more losses this year. Back in 2000, Hearst bought the paper for $660 million while shedding the Examiner in a controversial deal that put it in the hands of a local publisher.

But that very next year the paper began clocking losses, and the company says it has lost money ever since, citing the large payroll it must carry. The paper has a weekday circulation of 339,000, which makes it the 12th largest paper in the country, but that's down by a third since it bought the paper eight years ago.

Hearst's ploy follows almost to the letter a showdown Advance Publications forced at the Newark Star-Ledger last year. There it worked, and Advance won its concessions after some initial resistance from unions. It will probably work in San Francisco too. Employees don't have much choice but to concede.

But whether those concessions will save the Chronicle from closure is quite another matter. Big city dailies are suffering the deepest hurt in this ad recession, and their suffering began well before, led by significant drops in readership in the past several years, and analysts have long worried that many of them would simply fold. By contrast, papers in smaller markets are weathering the downturn far better.

Just in recent days, owners of the Philadelphia papers have filed for bankruptcy, as has the company that owns the New Haven Register, and Hearst has said it will close the Seattle Post-Intelligencer if it can't find a buyer. The Rocky Mountain News also recently joined the endangered list.

If the Chronicle should close, it would leave in the market MediaNews, which owns a string of papers surrounding the city, including the San Jose Mercury News, and the Examiner, now under a new owner as a free paper.