Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) has added the New York Daily News, the fifth largest newspaper in the U.S., to its 20-member Newspaper Consortium. The Daily News with an average print/online readership of 4.5 million per week, is the largest daily to join the consortium since it started last November with seven publishers.

As part of its membership, the Daily News can use Yahoo’s technologies for targeting display ads and content distribution. But the primary reason the New York daily gave for joining Yahoo’s network is the chance to align its employment classifieds with Yahoo HotJobs.

The announcement comes as several other newspaper companies are considering forming their own online ad network. As we noted earlier this week, a possible challenge to the Yahoo consortium could come from the Tribune, Gannett, (NYSE: GCI) Hearst, MediaNews Group and Cox Newspapers, which are currently still in discussions about creating a national newspaper-only network. The latter three are members of the Yahoo consortium and would do both.
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