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To: Vendit™ who wrote (30461)	9/8/1999 8:25:00 AM
From: Roy F	Respond to of 41369

America Online and TV Guide, Inc. Announce Television Content Alliance TV Guide to Become Premier Provider of TV Program Listings and Content Across Four AOL Brands September 8, 1999 08:00 AM TULSA, Okla. and DULLES, Va., Sept. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- America Online, Inc. AOL , the world's leading interactive services company, and TV Guide, Inc. TVGIA the world's leading provider of entertainment information and TV program listings, today announced an agreement to bring TV Guide's unparalleled program listings and content to the largest consumer audience in cyberspace. Under this agreement, TV Guide Online, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Guide, Inc., will become the premier provider of television listings and episode information across four AOL brands, which includes AOL and CompuServe's combined membership of 20 million members -- as well as the millions of visitors to AOL.COM and Netscape Netcenter. TV Guide will also receive prominent placement in eight AOL Channels, including Entertainment, Families, Teens, Kids Only, AOL Live, News, Personal Finance, and Sports, lending its editorial expertise to creating age- appropriate listings and customized viewing recommendations for AOL members of all ages with varying interests. TV Guide will contribute exclusive daily chats with television stars and personalities in AOL Live and localized television listings to Digital City, AOL's local content network. TV Guide will also receive online promotion in My Calendar, AOL's new interactive calendar that will allow members to plan and manage important parts of their lives by tracking appointments, events and dates online. Additionally, TV Guide and AOL will work together to create co-branded Web sites for each of the AOL brands that may be accessed through TV Guide Online(SM), TV Guide's already established web site. The companies will jointly pursue interactive advertising and e-commerce opportunities associated with the various co-branded environments. The deal will also extend to cross- promotion of AOL across a variety of TV Guide media properties. Joe Kiener, chairman and chief executive officer of TV Guide, Inc. said, "AOL's quality services and powerful consumer reach will help raise TV Guide's online business to the next plateau. This marketing alliance further underpins TV Guide's strategy of creating a ubiquitous portal for TV listings and entertainment content by leveraging our brand across traditional and non- traditional media platforms." Bob Pittman, AOL's president and chief operating officer said, "This agreement is a clear example of two leading brands joining forces to add convenience to consumers' lives. With TV Guide's television programming expertise, AOL continues to offer consumers the next level of interactivity and rich media content across all of its brands." Peter C. Boylan III, president and chief operating officer of TV Guide Inc. said, "We are very excited about this new robust business relationship with AOL given their tremendous reach on the Internet. TV Guide Online has unlimited potential to unlock new revenue streams with interactive advertising and electronic commerce and this new partnership with AOL will further strengthen our position as the leading entertainment and television listings provider on the web". Jonathan Sacks, AOL's senior vice president and general manager of Interactive Services said, "We're always focused on delivering the best content and programming available in cyberspace across the AOL brands. This new alliance with TV Guide, one of the most recognizable brands when it comes to television, goes hand in hand with our strategy." Founded in 1985, America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies, and e-commerce services. America Online, Inc. operates: two worldwide Internet services, America Online, with more than 18 million members, and CompuServe, with approximately 2 million members; several leading Internet brands including ICQ, Digital City, Inc., Spinner.com, and Winamp; the Netscape Netcenter and AOL.COM portals; and the Netscape Navigator and Communicator browsers. Through its strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems, the Company develops and offers easy-to-deploy, end-to-end e-commerce and enterprise solutions for companies operating in the Net Economy. TV Guide, Inc. is a global diversified media and communications company that operates three primary business units: TV Guide Entertainment Group, TV Guide Magazine Group, and United Video Group. TV Guide markets and distributes products in the United States to over 100 million cable and satellite homes every week. TV Guide also markets its products internationally in 44 countries. TV Guide magazine and TV Guide Channel are the largest print and electronic guidance products in the world. TV Guide has unparalleled consumer reach with such products and cable/satellite services as: - TV Guide magazine -11 million circulation -34 million weekly readers - TV Guide Channel -50 million subscribers -28 million weekly viewers - TV Guide Interactive -34 million homes passed -2.3 million subscribers - TV Guide Online -37 million page views ->73,000 unique users (www.tvguide.com) /month per day - The Cable Guide -4 million subscribers -11 million weekly readers - Sneak Prevue -33 million subscribers - WGN -46 million subscribers - KTLA -3 million subscribers - WPIX -3 million subscribers - Denver 6 Services -4 million subscribers TV Guide operates several other business units including: - SpaceCom Systems - Television Games Network - SSDS - TV Guide Media Sales - TV Guide Affiliate Sales - TV Guide Enterprise Solutions - TV Guide International - MMDI - Superstar Netlink Group LLC - InfoMedia For up to date information about TV Guide companies, please access the Company's Internet home page at www.tvguideinc.com. TV Guide trades on the Nasdaq stock market under the symbol TVGIA. SOURCE TV Guide, Inc. and America Online, Inc.

To: Vendit™ who wrote (30461)	9/9/1999 8:22:00 PM
From: jhg_in_kc	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 41369

Speed up your modem Ven, a good read. Remember COVD? A little-noticed provision in the SBC-Ameritech merger agreement will change the way Americans access the Internet--and the way telecommunications is regulated. BY Peter Spiegel 09/20/1999 Forbes 197 Copyright 1999 Forbes Inc. TELEPHONE CUSTOMERS in 13 states, including California and Texas, are about to get a gift from the Federal Communications Commission--deregulation of the business of offering high-speed Internet access over phone lines. It's a key provision of the soon-to-be-approved merger of SBC Communications and Ameritech that's gone almost totally ignored in the media. And it's giving fits to AT&T, which has spent most of the past year on a $116 billion spending spree to get residential customers hooked up to broadband access through cable modems. Don't order that cable modem just yet. Take a look at DSL--for "digital subscriber line"--a kind of on-ramp for the Internet that is about to take off after several years of just sputtering along. (See related story, p. 198.) If you take the cable choice (available to a third of U.S. households), you will spend perhaps $200 for a modem and up to $50 a month for high-speed Web access. AT&T will be the largest marketer of cable access, but other cable networks offer the same service. Speed: up to 2 megabits a second, 35 times as fast as the best modem using ordinary telephone lines. However, because multiple users share the same bandwidth, the maximum speed is rarely reached. For about the same price, for both the modem and the service, you can get DSL. It's rated at only 1 megabit--20 times as fast as an ordinary dial-up modem--but you are more likely to hit top speed. Why even consider DSL? Price. There is reason to believe that it will soon be available for a good deal less than $50 a month. Here's why. DSL technology has been around since the early 1990s, but only about 150,000 Americans currently use it. Blame the local providers for that. Rather than roll out DSL to residential customers, most of the Bells have focused on more lucrative business services, such as T1 lines, which go for a monthly charge of $1,000 or more. That opened the door for small newcomers, such as Santa Clara, Calif.-based Covad Communications and San Francisco's NorthPoint Communications, to cherry-pick a few thousand Internet users and sign them up for DSL services. But these outfits are captives of the regional Bells, in much the same way that MCI was a captive of AT&T in its early days. The alternative DSL companies have to rent everything--from office space near the local switch to the phone lines themselves--from the Bells, which are also their primary competitors. The SBC-Ameritech deal will change all that. Once the merger is completed, SBC must put all its broadband services into a separate, unregulated subsidiary. This sub will function just as the upstarts do--meaning it will have to rent space, lines and maintenance systems from its parent. The immediate result should be a drop in prices, since the deal also requires SBC to lower its access fees to the new subsidiary. But more important, since it levels the playing field, competition will flourish. Hurray, says Scott Cleland, a telecommunications analyst with Legg Mason Precursor Group. "It isn't but every few decades that anybody offers you any true deregulation," he says. "When they do, you should take it." The Bells won't necessarily suffer from a cut in access fees. The data market is growing explosively, and they will get a piece of it, one way or another. The voice market has been growing at an annual rate of 4% to 5% ; data, at 300% . Despite objections from AT&T, FCC approval of the deal is expected, since FCC chairman William E. Kennard has been personally pushing for the concept of deregulated subsidiaries to handle these broadband services. Indeed, some analysts predict that setting up a separate broadband subsidiary could also become a requirement for the still-pending GTE-Bell Atlantic merger. And if this kind of broadband market spreads, it could very well mean the start of a truly deregulated telecommunications industry.