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PBS SIGNS FREEDOM NEWSPAPERS AT NEXPO 2004

Newspaper properties to centralize on shared circulation system

Minneapolis, MN, – June 21, 2004 – Publishing Business Systems (PBS), North America’s leading source for integrated enterprise–wide newspaper business software systems, signed an agreement with Freedom Communications, Inc. to license its MediaPlus® integrated solutions. This initial agreement, signed at the NEXPO trade show in Washington, D.C., includes Freedom’s division of community newspapers and their metro paper, the Gazette, located in Colorado Springs.

Freedom Communications publishes 28 daily and 37 weekly newspapers, with a combined daily circulation of more than 1.2 million subscribers. The PBS MediaPlus® Circulation system will allow Freedom to centralize their properties on a shared system, offering significant savings in infrastructure and systems support. And while the PBS system provides the benefits of system consolidation, it has the flexibility to cluster properties as needed for Freedom into regional databases. According to Mike Brown, CIO, “PBS MediaPlus Circulation provides the scalability and flexibility we need to manage our widely distributed community newspapers. We have some papers that we want to operate from a common database for cross–selling and marketing purposes, and other papers that require independence. PBS is able to address all of our installation requirements as well as provide additional benefits that will support the growth of our newspaper business”.

And for the Gazette, MediaPlus® Advertising will be integrated with the paper’s existing PBS MediaPlus Circulation system. “We were impressed with the level of integration that the PBS solutions will provide”, noted Brad Shaw, Director of IT at the Gazette. “Not only will we save in systems support and maintenance, but we will be able to simplify operations and turn consolidated subscriber and advertising customer information into new revenue–generating marketing opportunities.”

For its community newspapers, Freedom Communications plans to take advantage of several unique features in MediaPlus Circulation including Target Marketing, a feature that is used to segment markets by household or lifestyle demographics to generate targeted marketing campaigns. Target Marketing aids in the distribution of these campaigns (by direct mail, telemarketing, or e–mail delivery), and helps to measure the results by tracking and analyzing campaign activity. Freedom Communications plans to leverage Target Marketing to generate added revenue and increased market share through cross–selling in regions where the company has several papers.

Freedom also licensed MediaPlus Circulation InSight business intelligence software to analyze and plan circulation growth. With InSight, Freedom will benefit from centralized reporting and analysis at various levels in their organization individual papers, regional groups of papers, and the entire enterprise.

On signing the agreement at the NEXPO trade show, PBS CEO Steve Smith said, “This year at NEXPO represents an exciting point in our company’s history. We are showing some truly innovative systems that can provide significant business opportunities to newspaper groups like Freedom Communications. There is tremendous synergy in the visions of our organizations; our technology and the flexibility of our systems directly reflect the needs of Freedom Communications.”

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