American Profile Announces Early Launch for Southeast Region; National Weekly Newspaper Magazine to Begin Distribution in April 2000.

Business Editors

NASHVILLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 7, 2000

American Profile, a four-color national magazine with regionalized editorial content celebrating life in America's hometowns, will launch in the Southeast region of the U.S. in April 2000, six months ahead of its original timeline.

As previously planned, the Midwest edition of the supplement for hometown and community newspapers also is set for April 2000, and will be followed by consecutive expansions into four other U.S. geographic regions.

Publishing Group of America (PGA) moved up the Southeast launch date of American Profile in response to strong interest from newspaper publishers across the region.

&uot;So many requests came in to launch early, we accelerated our plans,&uot; said Dan Hammond, publisher and CEO of American Profile. &uot;The newspaper publishers, editors and state press association executive directors have enthusiastically embraced American Profile as a product that is ideally suited for community newspapers and the interests of their readers.&uot;

Each edition of American Profile will include a broad range of regular features, including regional selections of Hometown Heroes, Close-To-Home regional calendars of events, as well as national stories on celebrities with hometown ties, health trends, entertainment, and important current issues. A special regional editorial feature of each issue is a profile of one of America's great hometowns.

&uot;American Profile is one of the most exciting ideas for smaller newspapers that I have seen in my 40 years in the business,&uot; said Dennis Schick, executive director of the Arkansas Press Association. &uot;By offering the enhancement of a four-color magazine, publishers can increase their circulation and even align advertising rates to reflect the expanded editorial content. There is even a promotional package of `house' ads available to assist publishers in promotion.&uot;

Until now, hometown and community newspapers have not had access to a regionalized, national magazine supplement with quality content and production that meets or exceeds that of the national Sunday magazine supplements, Hammond said.

&uot;Large market daily newspapers are well-served with the existing national Sunday magazine supplements, but weekly and small market dailies require fundamentally different approaches for editorial content, production and distribution. We are focusing our efforts solely on these markets,&uot; Hammond added.

For more information about American Profile and Publishing Group of America, please visit the company's web site at www.americanprofile.com, or call [phone].