Cosmopolitan TV Channel to Launch in Spain & Portugal in Spring 2000.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 28, 1999--

Hearst & MultiPark Announce Partnership

in 24-Hour Television Programming Service for Young Women

Cosmopolitan, a 24-hour young women's television channel, will launch in Spain and Portugal in spring 2000, it was announced today by Ignacio Corrales, general manager of MultiPark Madrid, and Bruce L. Paisner, vice president of The Hearst Corporation and deputy group head of Hearst Entertainment & Syndication. Hearst and MultiPark are equal partners in the venture.

The Cosmopolitan Channel in Iberia, inspired by Hearst's Cosmopolitan magazine, marks the first time a women's magazine brand has been used as the basis for a television network. The channel, based in Madrid, aims to be the entertaining and hip television option for young Iberian women, offering a broad range of programming -- from original productions to targeted movies, dramas and comedies.

The channel will secure distribution through an arrangement with Ella, a general women's channel, which is currently available to nearly 500,000 subscribers in Spain via DTH and on local cable systems. In spring 2000, Cosmopolitan Channel Iberia will take over those slots in Spain and will be launched on a non-exclusive basis to at least those subscribed homes.

The joint venture combines Hearst's TV expertise and the international appeal of Cosmopolitan magazine, a worldwide brand, with the local expertise of MultiPark Madrid. "We have all the ingredients for the project to be a resounding success," said Corrales. "Young women represent Spain and Portugal's largest and most important television market, and Cosmopolitan's popularity in Iberia will extend easily and rapidly among cable and DTH television subscribers." MultiPark Madrid will supply original productions to the channel.

"Spain and Portugal represent an ideal market for this channel," said Paisner. "First, these countries offer a sophisticated, young, female population in an emerging multichannel and cable television universe. In addition, in the much smaller world of today, we see Spain as a valuable testing environment, much like consumer marketers saw the great and growing U.S. Midwestern states in the 1950s. We will monitor the initial launch of the Cosmopolitan Channel on an ongoing basis in order to determine our next steps with this exciting project."

Hearst's Entertainment & Syndication group has spent the last three years researching and developing Cosmopolitan for television under the direction of Cynthia Hudson-Fernandez, senior vice president of Cosmopolitan Television, who leads the team that is creating the channel.

Hearst is a pioneer in cable television as a founding partner in the Lifetime, A&E and The History Channel cable networks. Hearst and Capital Cities/ABC wholly own the Lifetime network as equal partners. The two media companies are also equal partners in the A&E network, in which NBC owns a separate 25 percent.

Hearst also owns 20 percent of ESPN. In addition, Hearst and Capital Cities/ABC own 20 percent of Tevecap Brazil (TVA), a leading supplier of cable and satellite television services in Brazil. Hearst and the Cisneros Group of Companies jointly own Locomotion, a 24-hour animation channel in Latin America and Iberia.

Cosmopolitan, the world's largest selling magazine for young women, is published in 39 international editions. Hearst announced the launch of the title's latest edition, in Ukraine, last week.

The editors of the Cosmopolitan magazines published in Spain and Portugal, Sarah Glattstein Franco and Margarida Pinto Correia, will serve as advisors to the Cosmopolitan Channel in Iberia. Cosmopolitan Spain, which is one of the most successful of the title's international editions, is published as a Hearst joint venture with G+J Espana Ediciones S.L., S.en C. Cosmopolitan Portugal is published as a Hearst joint venture with Abril Hearst Editoria, Lda.

The Hearst Corporation (www.hearstcorp.com) is one of the nation's largest diversified communications companies. Its major interests include newspaper, magazine and business publishing, television and radio broadcasting, cable network programming, newspaper features distribution, television production and distribution, Internet activities, and real estate.

MultiPark Madrid, S.A. (MPM) is a Spanish media company immersed in that country's digital reality. It produces and distributes programming for various audiovisual formats: satellite, digital, cable and digital terrestrial television, free TV, live theater and the Internet.

MPM currently produces four DTH channels in Spain: Ella TV, a women's interest channel; TeleMadrid SAT, the DTH version of terrestrial TeleMadrid; Tribunal TV, a court channel; and Canal Cocina, a cooking channel. With infrastructure investments, it holds 34 percent of Telefonica de Cable Madrid, and is a programming provider to the main satellite and cable television operators in the country, among them Via Digital, Madritel, Telefonica de Cable, Ono, Menta, Retecal, Supercable Andalucia, Euskaltel, Telecable Asturias, Aragon de Cable, and Retena y Cabletelca.

MPM is owned by TeleMadrid, a government-owned regional broadcasting company; Caja Madrid, one of the largest savings and loan institutions in the country; and Canal de Isabel II, Spain's Water Company, and is one of Spain's leading communications companies.