Report: Yahoo Eyes $300M Buyout of Video Service News Distribution Network

In a bid to narrow the gap with YouTube, Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) is reportedly in preliminary talks to acquire online-video service News Distribution Network for roughly $300 million.

The apparent buyout negotiations follow Yahoo’s failed efforts to acquire Paris-based video site Dailymotion for $225 million last year. That deal collapsed following objections from French politicians.

According to The Wall Street Journal, in recent weeks Yahoo has renewed talks that began several years ago to acquire NDN, which is the No. 4 video site with more than 573 million video views per month across 51 million unique viewers.

Founded in 2007, NDN is a video syndication service that distributes clips about news and sports to newspapers and other publishers.

"We don’t comment on rumors or speculation," a Yahoo spokesperson said. NDN did not respond to a request for comment, but a company spokesperson told the Journal that NDN is not in talks to be acquired by Yahoo “at this time.”

A buyout of NDN could help Yahoo better compete with Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) YouTube for advertising dollars and viewers.

Last week, tech blog Re/code reported Yahoo executives are crafting a plan to poach YouTube stars and networks.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer agreed to shell out $1.1 billion last year to acquire Tumblr.

Shares of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo jumped 2.26% to $36.71 Tuesday morning. Yahoo has slumped 9% so far this year, though it remains up 56% over the past 12 months.