Yahoo!, News Corp. said to be in talks

Monday, Feb. 28, 2000 | 11:58 a.m.

NEW YORK -- Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has held talks with Yahoo! that could lead to a broad alliance between the old and new media companies, a magazine reported.

Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang met several times in recent weeks with News Corp.'s No. 2 executive Peter Chernin, the New Yorker reported in its March 6 issue, citing an unnamed source familiar with the talks.

While nothing has been finalized, the report said the two companies were discussing a wide-ranging alliance under which News Corp. would provide access to Yahoo! Web sites through its global satellite systems and allow Yahoo! to use News Corp.'s news and entertainment products, such as Fox News Channel and the London Times, as a "major source" of content.

The two companies would remain separate entities, but take significant financial stakes in one another, the magazines said. The issue hits newsstands today.

Yang recently told the magazine Yahoo! wants to partner with old-media outlets, but is not interested in a merger.