MINDEN, Nev., May 2, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Kingdom Ventures, Inc. (OTCBB:KDMV), a rapidly growing church development company, announced today it has acquired the Christian Times' South Texas Edition. Christian Times is the largest regional Christian newspaper chain in the U.S. with a monthly circulation of over 200,000 copies through more than 6,000 churches and Christian retail outlets. The Christian Times(r) newspaper is an eight-time award winner with the Evangelical Press Association and a two-time Angel Award winner. It is also widely recognized as one of the leading Christian newspapers nationwide. The South Texas edition has been in publication for just over a year, and has circulation of 25,000, with hundreds of churches, bookstores and other retail outlets for its primary distribution.
"We believe the country's 150+ million Christians represent the largest untapped affinity group in the U.S. We have recently launched our Christian Merchants initiative aiming at providing a direct marketing channel to tens of millions of active church members controlling hundreds of billions of dollars in annual spending. Our media properties are instrumental in making this happen. The South Texas Christian Times(r) acquisition gives us a powerful geographical reach in Texas, including Houston, the country's single largest Christian market, and the fourth largest city in the U.S.," says Gene Jackson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Kingdom Ventures, Inc.
"Keener Communications Group currently publishes six regional editions in California, one in Colorado and one in Washington state. Texas is the second most populous state in the country, the largest state in the Bible Belt, with its 21.5 million people. This makes Texas an ideal market for Christian Times. This is a tremendous market opportunity for us, and we look forward to capitalizing on it as quickly as possible," says Jackson.
This acquisition strengthens Kingdom Ventures' position in the Christian media market. It further solidifies Kingdom's position as the fastest growing publicly traded Christian media company in the country. Kingdom Ventures' 280% annual revenue growth rate is well above Salem Communications (Nasdaq:SALM), Integrity Media (Nasdaq:ITGR) and Thomas Nelson (NYSE:TNM).
Kingdom Ventures' goal is to become the driving force behind the growth of churches and other faith-based organizations. As a church development company, Kingdom first identifies the key challenges its client churches face, and then provides solutions for each one of them. Instead of performing all services in-house, the company's business model is based on forming strategic alliances with the leading companies in various industries.
Kingdom Ventures helps faith-based organizations streamline their operations, raise additional money through various fund-raising activities or simply provide technological solutions that transform small and medium-sized churches into state-of-the-art presentation centers. The company helps churches focus on their core mission -- reaching people for God -- by focusing on its core business: helping churches and their people grow.
There are approximately 400,000 Protestant churches in the U.S. alone. 94% of them have fewer than 1,000 active members, and therefore limited financial resources to effectively manage the business side of their operations. Christian organizations' total budgets are measured in billions of dollars. 89% of American households give to charities an average of $1,600+ a year, and religious organizations receive 60% of it. In addition, religious and inspirational products are selling at a pace of $5.6 billion annually (source: Christian Retailing Magazine).
Within less than three years, Kingdom Ventures has built a distribution network for Christian products, consisting of 2,100+ retail stores; 1,200 Christian bookstores and 900 gift stores. It has also established strong business relationships with hundreds of Christian organizations and performed over 750 fundraising events -- helping churches and other Christian organizations grow.
Kingdom Ventures is a publicly traded company and its stock trades on the OTCBB under the ticker symbol KDMV. Last month Alpha Analytics, an independent research firm, initiated coverage on Kingdom Ventures' stock. It issued Kingdom Ventures its highest rating, "Attractive" / "Buy", giving it $5.13 and $9.15 price targets for 2003 and 2004, respectively.
For more information, visit www.kdmvcorp.com. To sign up for shareholder alerts, visit http://www.kdmvcorp.com/ir_shareholderalerts.htm.
For more information on The Christian Times, visit www.christiantimes.com.
All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release are "forward-looking statements." The forward-looking statements, including statements about the company's future expectations, including future revenues and earnings, and all other forward-looking statements (i.e., future operational results and sales) are subject to assumptions and beliefs based on current information known to the company and factors that are subject to uncertainties, risk and other influences, which are outside the company's control, and may yield results differing materially from those anticipated.