NBC AND MCI TO TEST NEW NETWORK AFFILIATE VIDEO-ON-DEMAND SYSTEM.

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 15, 1996--(National Association of Broadcasters)--NBC and MCI today announced the test of a new, high-speed data communications system that could revolutionize the way broadcasting companies feed reports to affiliates nationwide. The new system will connect 20 NBC affiliate stations via MCI HyperMedia(SM) service. NBC and MCI will jointly engineer, manage and operate the trial between all NBC affiliates and NBC News Channel in Charlotte, North Carolina; NBC Advertising and Promotions and NBC Affiliate Relations in New York and Burbank, California.

NBC will provide news and promotional clips to the affiliates, who can then access the video-on-demand through servers based in MCI's network. Currently the clips are distributed via satellite and require schedule coordination and a constant monitoring of transmissions.

The trial currently consists of a mix of urban, rural and suburban stations including all of NBC's affiliate stations in Texas, as well as affiliates in Medford, Oregon; Richmond, Virginia; Sacramento, California and Detroit, Michigan. The system will use servers and workstations from Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics, Inc., encoding technology from Vela Research, software and systems integration from Digital Network Television (DNet), and networking equipment from Fore Systems and Cisco Systems.

Neil Braun, President, NBC Television Network said: "NBC is constantly searching for ways to improve our communications with our 215 affiliates located throughout the United States. We will use the trial to see how and if this service saves the affiliates time and money, and how it can affect the quality of their product."

Randy Falco, President, NBC Broadcast and Operations, whose staff oversaw the design and start-up of the trial said: "NBC has always been a leader in technological innovation. We were the first television network and the first network to broadcast in color and stereo. This trial illustrates our continued interest in evaluating and implementing technology that improves the efficiency of our business and the quality of the programming we bring our viewers."

Bob Horner, President, NBC News Channel said: "We expect this system will make life easier for local news producers, and, as a result, we think they will use even more of our material. In the future, we could use this system to help us gather news stories, as well as distribute them."

Fred Briggs, MCI chief engineering officer said: "MCI HyperMedia, the newest addition to MCI's recently announced Enterprise Network Solutions portfolio, puts the control of content selection in the hands of the users, and gives them the ability to select the video and information they want, when they want it. Using the MCI HyperMedia's server-based store and forward system to deliver news content is just one of the many applications."

NBC is a global media company, with broadly diverse holdings. NBC owns and operates the NBC Television Network, as well as nine television stations. In the US, NBC also owns two cable channels, CNBC and America's Talking (soon to be MSNBC), with part ownership in 17 other cable channels. Internationally, NBC operates channels in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

MCI, headquartered in Washington, DC, is one of the world's largest and fastest-growing diversified communications companies. With annual revenue of more than $15 billion, MCI offers consumers and businesses a broad portfolio of services including long distance, wireless, local access, paging, Internet software and access, information services, outsourcing, business software, advanced global telecommunications services, and music distribution and merchandising.

The NBC affiliates participating in the trial are KAMR (Amarillo, TX), KCBD (Lubbock, TX), KCEN (Temple, TX), KETK (Tyler, TX), KGNS (Laredo, TX), KJAC (Port Arthur, TX), KMOL (San Antonio, TX), KPRC (Houston, TX), KRBC (Abilene, TX), KRIS (Corpus Cristi, TX), KXAN (Austin, TX), KXAS (Fort Worth, TX), KFDX (Wichita Falls, TX), KVEO (Brownsville, TX), KWES (Midland, TX), KTSM (El Paso, TX), KCRA (Sacramento, CA), KOBI (Medford, OR), WWBT (Richmond, VA), and WDIV (Detroit, MI).

CONTACT: MCI

Barbara McLeod, 1-800-644-NEWS

[e-mail]

or

NBC Corporate Communications

Paul Lief Rosengren, 212-664-2756