Intertainment Holding Develops Innovative Technology and Plans Appearance on the Stock Exchange

Munich, February 14th 2000 - US-based Internet pioneer SightSound.com — the most recent holding of Munich-based media corporation Intertainment AG — has taken yet another decisive technological step towards strengthening and expanding their market share, and is also planning its entry into the stock market. SightSound.com, who garnered the only patent for digital download of motion pictures and music in the United States, has now applied for their fourth patent for an innovative method of data compression for moving pictures. This method cuts the time required to download motion picture files from the Internet in half, without forfeiting picture or sound quality. "This technology ensures that SightSound.com will play a dominant role in this high-growth market in the future", commented Rüdiger Baeres, Intertainment's CEO.

Operating from their East coast headquarters in the United States, Sightsound.com was the first company to begin distributing music via Internet downloads in 1995. In April 1999, they were once again the first to enable downloading of feature-length films.

SightSound.com is a platform for distributing motion pictures and music tracks. As Intertainment acquired a 26% interest in the Internet-company last December, it secured an extremely attractive new sales channel for its feature-length films. After all, Intertainment holds licenses for numerous top-notch movies scheduled for release this year. "SightSound.com's new patent proves that our strategy was correct", stated Baeres, "because it supplements not only one, but two existing conventional sales channels: prior to downloading the selected movie, SightSound.com customers can choose between either purchase or rental."

Maximizing Growth Potential

Baeres expects even more good news from SightSound.com this year, which, in turn, will have a positive effect on Intertainment. For example, the US holding is planning to go public in the year 2000. SightSound.com's appearance on the stock exchange will facilitate the exploitation of its growth potential.

As part of its on-going international expansion strategy, SightSound.com will set up a data center in Frankfurt by the middle of this year. The installation of a high-performance server there will reduce download times by yet another 50% for customers logging onto SightSound.com's Web site from Germany. Similar data centers are already operating in seven cities in the USA. During the course of this year, additional high-performance servers will be set up in London and Tokyo. Last but not least, SightSound.com will also begin distributing films dubbed in foreign languages — until now, only English language movies have been available on the Internet.

Munich-based Intertainment AG is a media corporation specializing in the licensing of feature films and the merchandising. Intertainment AG is listed on the 'Neuer Markt' of the Frankfurt stock exchange. Based on preliminary figures for the 1999 fiscal year, the corporation increased revenue by 81% to 53 million DM, which represents an increase of approx. 115% — to 19 million DM — in conventional business activities. For the current fiscal year, Intertainment expects revenues of approx. 290 million DM, and an overall operating result of more than 76 million DM.

For more information contact:
Intertainment AG
Claudia Wilmans
Widenmayerstrasse 49
80538 Munich
Tel.: +49 / 89 /21 69 9-0
Fax: +49 / 89 / 21 69 9-11