News Corp seeks MySpace deal with Yahoo!

Yahoo!

News Corporation is understood to be in discussions with Yahoo! about selling social networking site MySpace in return for a 25% stake in an enlarged US digital company.

News Corp, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, is known to be keen to extend its presence in digital media. It acquired MySpace from its founders in 2005.

Yahoo! has previously failed to buy social networking site Facebook and is eager to grab market share from Google by breaking into the social networking arena.

It is understood that other News Corporation digital assets, such as games network IGN which is valued at around $37bn (£18.7bn), has been also offered to Yahoo! as part of the deal. A quarter stake of the enlarged business if the deal goes ahead would be worth around $11.1bn (£5.6bn).

Discussions are thought to be at an early staged and it is not clear if they have been affected by the departure of Yahoo! chief executive Terry Semel this week. He has since been replaced by chairman and co-founder Jerry Yang.