DALLAS, Feb. 22, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- iMedia International, Inc. (OTCBB:IMNL) and Universal Press Syndicate have entered into an agreement with The Dallas Morning News to distribute Hollywood Previews Entertainment iMagazine, the world's first branded interactive video magazine, as a monthly CD-ROM insert in the newspaper's Sunday edition. In an industry first, the insert will be launched on Sunday, April 30, and will appear in more than 625,000 copies of The Dallas Morning News that are distributed to subscribers and through newsstands in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area.
"The Dallas Morning News has been expanding our lifestyle-themed products and services to increase the paper's appeal in today's consumer-driven society, especially among younger audiences," said Bernie Heller, vice president of advertising for The Dallas Morning News. "Including this innovative digital media magazine in our newspaper creates an engaging and entertaining experience for our readers, as well as additional marketing opportunities for advertisers."
"The entertainment-savvy readers of The Dallas Morning News make this a natural partnership," said Henry Williamson, president of Newspaper Syndication for iMedia US. "Everyone from the publisher to the vice president of advertising has embraced this project. Everyone is putting full efforts and resources behind the program to ensure its success."
Each issue of the iMagazine contains movie trailers, sweepstakes and behind-the-scene video interviews with the biggest stars in Hollywood. In addition to the engaging movie content, Hollywood Previews also features segments on the latest hit television shows, delivers new music videos and premiers the latest video games. This fully interactive, multi-media experience is totally unique, enabling the consumer to instantly purchase tickets, CDs or DVDs for any of the profiled movies, shows, games and events directly through the Internet.
"The CD-ROM format of Hollywood Previews gives advertisers an opportunity to leverage the The Dallas Morning News' audience reach and distribution power. Advertisers will be able to deliver multi-media commercials and direct access to Web-based transactions and responses, special offers, product information and much more," said Heller.
Another plus for advertisers is iMedia's iReporting feature. The proprietary technology allows for permission-based, real-time online tracking and measurement of consumer usage along with the gathering of key response data. "Based on past newspaper distributions in various test markets conducted by iMedia, we know that this product generates a very high average number of people who take the CD from the newspaper and view it in their computer," said Williamson.
"This level of use offers very appealing visibility for advertisers who want to integrate their messages across multiple media platforms," added Heller.
The convergent media provides greater continuity to advertisers looking to promote their products and services. "Our products converge the delivery power of video, the transactional power of the Internet with the tremendous audience and distribution power of newspapers," added Williamson. "Sight, sound and motion have arrived in your newspaper, and is premiering in The Dallas Morning News."
A key component to this program is the fact that each disc provides instant access to the Internet. "Newspapers can now play a role that Google and Yahoo have played in the past. For example, with Hollywood Previews The Dallas Morning News can direct readers to DallasNews.com and to the Web sites of their advertisers to view special offers and promotions," said Bob Duffy, president of Universal Press Syndicate, which represents iMedia through syndication. "This key component offers a compelling and immediate revenue generating opportunity for newspapers and advertisers."
About iMedia International Inc.
iMedia International, Inc. (www.imedia-intl.com) is a publicly held digital media solutions company producing DVDs and CD-ROMs for digital multimedia marketing and promotional campaigns. iMedia publishes proprietary and custom digital iMagazines and offers expert digital media solutions services including: strategic planning, content aggregation and production, disc audio/video design, authoring, editing and compression, disc packaging manufacturing and distribution. A key feature of iMedia's technology is its iReporting(TM) real-time, online tracking system which provides quantitative data on disc viewer usage patterns and effectiveness of iMedia marketing and promotional campaigns.
About The Dallas Morning News
Established in 1885, The Dallas Morning News is the nation's tenth largest newspaper, and serves a population of more than 1.7 million. The newspaper has received seven Pulitzer Prizes since 1986, as well as numerous other industry awards recognizing the quality of its investigative and feature journalism, design and photojournalism. Its Web site, dallasnews.com, received the Scripps Howard Foundation National Award for Web Reporting in 2005. In 2003, the paper launched the leading Spanish-language daily in North Texas, al dia; the standard-setting free weekday paper, Quick; and the nation's first editorial blog. The Dallas Morning News is the flagship newspaper subsidiary of Belo Corp. (NYSE:BLC), one of the nation's largest media companies with a diversified group of market-leading television, newspaper, cable and interactive media assets. A Fortune 1000 company with 7,700 employees and $1.5 billion in revenues, Belo operates in some of America's most dynamic markets in Texas, the Northwest, the Southwest, and Rhode Island and the Mid-Atlantic.
About Universal Press Syndicate
Universal Press is the largest independent newspaper syndicate in the world and the industry leader in bringing products and services to print and digital media that offer both advertising and subscriber opportunities. Headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., Universal Press also distributes some of the most popular comics and features in newspapers today, including Dear Abby, The Boondocks, Cathy, Doonesbury, For Better or For Worse, FoxTrot, Garfield, The Mini Page and Ziggy. Its features list ranges from Pulitzer Prize winners Roger Ebert, Pat Oliphant, Anna Quindlen, Ben Sargent, Tom Toles and Garry Trudeau and to famed columnists William F. Buckley Jr., James J. Kilpatrick and John Leo. Andrews McMeel Universal (AMU) is the corporate parent company that includes Universal Press Syndicate (UPS), Andrews McMeel Publishing (AMP) and uclick (www.ucomics.com).
The information in this news release includes certain forward-looking statements that are based upon assumptions that in the future may prove not to have been accurate and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties, including statements to the future financial performance of the Company, its programs and goals. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in its forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations or any of its forward-looking statements will ever materialize or prove to be correct. Factors that could cause results to differ include, but are not limited to, successful performance of internal plans, product development and acceptance by the respective newspaper and its advertisers, the impact of competitive services and pricing, general economic risks and uncertainties, and various other information detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that arise after the date thereof. Please refer to the full filing of the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q at http://www.sec.gov.