AP DIGITAL LAUNCHES ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT SERVICE

AP Entertainment Online Provides Text, Photo, Audio and Video Format News
to Web and Wireless Markets

NEW YORK, 30 January 2001 - AP Digital has introduced AP Entertainment Online, a multimedia news and information service delivering breaking entertainment news from The Associated Press to the Web and wireless markets. All information is provided via the Internet in Web-ready text, photo, audio and video formats and easy-to-use packages.

Topics include entertainment highlights, music news, film, theater and television reports, BillboardTM charts, breaking stories and insider views on what's happening in the entertainment business. Special features include reviews, celebrity interviews, listings, ratings, best sellers and coverage of special events such as the Grammy and Academy Awards.

Packaged and delivered to customer sites, the service includes top entertainment headlines linked to stories, which are updated each hour or as developments warrant. All news is sorted by topic and media type, providing maximum flexibility and ease in the way customers choose and post AP content. The service includes several new audio cuts and video clips each day.

"Today AP Entertainment Online becomes one of AP Digital's premium multimedia content categories," said Thomas E. Slaughter, vice president and director of AP Digital. "As a comprehensive news product, these video clips, audio cuts, photos and stories give our customer sites an increased ability to attract and retain users for longer periods."

AP Entertainment Online delivers a combination of text, photos, audio and video for use on Web sites and wireless devices. In many cases, news coverage of a particular story is available in more than one media format, allowing sites to complement text and photos with audio and video, for example.

All news arrives over the Internet in Web-ready formats such as Real and QuickTime video, WAV, MPEG2 and Real audio, JPEG photos, and XML news text.

About AP Digital: A division of The Associated Press, AP Digital offers news services with text, photos, audio, graphics and video on a wide variety of topics to the Web and wireless markets.
About The Associated Press: Founded in 1848, The Associated Press is the world's oldest and largest newsgathering organization, providing content to more than 15,000 news outlets with a daily reach of 1 billion people around the world. Its multimedia services are distributed by satellite and the Internet to more than 120 nations. For more information about The Associated Press, please visit www.ap.org. For more information about AP Digital, call 800-AP-CALL-1 or visit www.apdigitalnews.com.

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CONTACT: Fernando Ferre, Director of Marketing and Product Development, AP Digital, (212) 621-7020 or fferre@ap.org