Teamtalk to buy national radio station

TEAMTALK TO BUY NATIONAL RADIO STATION Atlantic 252 to be rebranded and relaunched as TEAMtalk 252 TEAMtalk Media Group plc ("TEAMtalk") has today entered into heads of terms with RTL Group to acquire 80% of Radio Tara Ltd ("Radio Tara"), which operates the national radio station "Atlantic 252", for total cash consideration of £2 million. For the year ended 31st December 2000, Radio Tara reported sales of IR£5.0 million and EBIT losses of IR£0.6 million, with net assets of IR£3.8 million. Currently, completion of the deal is anticipated to be by end of November 2001. The remaining 20% of Radio Tara will continue to be held by RTE, the Irish Public Service Broadcasting Organisation. The acquisition continues TEAMtalk's strategic drive to broaden its content delivery base by creating an additional platform for the distribution of TEAMtalk sports content. TEAMtalk intends to rebrand the station as TEAMtalk 252 and relaunch it as a predominantly sports-based station by the end of the financial year. The station will continue to broadcast from Radio Tara's facilities in Ireland to a UK audience on Long Wave 252. This is the third radio acquisition that TEAMtalk has made this year. In February 2001, TEAMtalk acquired MMC Sport-Redaktion, the largest independent sports radio programmer in Germany, which supplies over 200 radio stations across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This was followed by the acquisition in June 2001 of Hampson Radio, the leading UK in-store radio broadcaster with customers such as Asda and Moto. TEAMtalk also produces over 330 hours of sports audio in the UK, including a nine hour daily radio programme for Ladbrokes. Bill Wilson, Chairman & Chief Executive, of TEAMtalk, said: "This acquisition presents a win-win situation for us. As I have said in the past, TEAMtalk is about building an independent content generation machine that can create revenues from as many distribution platforms as possible. When the station is launched we will have a national radio presence that will enable TEAMtalk's sports content to be broadcast over main stream media and I am looking forward to driving the new format in the UK marketplace." Ends For Further Information: Bill Wilson, Chairman and Chief Executive Sheona Southern, Communications Director TEAMtalk Media Group plc 0113 399 2000 Alex Glover/ Melissa Choi WMC Communications 0207 591 3999 Roy Addison, Director of Corporate Communications RTL Group 00 352 42142 5130 +44 7785 301 617 (m) Notes to Editors: About TEAMtalk TEAMtalk was established in 1988 as a provider of premium rate fixed line telephony services. It has now become a major provider of sports content and entertainment delivered to customers via the Internet, radio, TV, mobile and premium rate fixed line telephone and satellite networks. Bespoke content is distributed directly by TEAMtalk through its own products and services or sold to business partners for delivery via all major delivery channels. TEAMtalk covers all professional football teams in the UK, US, Germany and Sweden, in addition to over 250 top world teams across 60 countries. TEAMtalk writes over 5,000 stories each week on football alone, in addition to thousands of stories on other sports including cricket, golf, formula 1, horse racing, greyhound racing, rugby league and union, motorsport and tennis. TEAMtalk is now the leading independent sports radio programmer in Germany, supplying over 200 radio stations across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In the UK, 330 hours of audio sports programming is produced including a 9-hour a day radio show for Ladbrokes. Audio activities have been further strengthened with the acquisition in June 2001 of Hampson Radio Limited, the number 1 for in-store radio programming in the UK. Success has also been achieved across other delivery platforms. TEAMtalk Satellite generates 55 editions of international multilingual newspapers printed in 10 different languages every day to maritime customers. The Group's Internet properties now attract a loyal base of over 3 million unique users every month, whilst TEAMtalk's mobile SMS news and scores services are supplied to an impressive list of clients, including News International and the Express Group. The TEAMtalk Group has offices worldwide including in the UK, the US, Germany and Sweden. The team consists of over 520 staff, including 100 in-house journalists and 270 freelancers. ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2001/10/11/20011011BIT00880/bit0002.doc http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2001/10/11/20011011BIT00880/bit0002.pdf