MEDIA PRIMA JOINS SMART ALLIANCE WITH ASEAN BROADCASTERS

KUALA LUMPUR, April 6 (Bernama) -- Media Prima Bhd, an integrated media investment group, has become a founding member of SMART Alliance, formed by broadcasters in the region to create and deliver commercial benefits for its members by developing content, selling, marketing and technology.

"We are pleased to be part of this Asean Alliance which provides a better
structure for the long established commercial relations with virtually all the
countries involved," said its group managing director and chief executive
officer Abdul Rahman Ahmad.

"We hope with the Alliance, we can further leverage and expand on these
relations for the mutual benefits of all parties," he said.

The six founding members -- ABS-CBN (Philippines), BBTV (Thailand),
International Media Corporation (Vietnam), Media Nusantara Citra (Indonesia),
Media Prima (Malaysia) and MediaCorp (Singapore) -- recently met in Singapore
and signed a memorandum of understanding pledging to work on specific areas.

With its growing middle-class population with an increasingly substantial
spending power, Asean alone presents a combined market size of more than half a
billion eyeballs for broadcasters.

The SMART alliance is well positioned to exploit economies of scale both as
a supplier of coveted content as well as a buyer of technology and equipment,
while advertisers and clients will benefit from the marketing and promotional
solutions the alliance will be able to deliver on a regional platform, he said.

Media Prima currently owns 100 per cent equity interest in TV3, 8TV, ntv7
and TV9. It also owns 43.3 per cent equity in the New Straits Times Press
(Malaysia) Bhd, one of the local publishing groups.

-- BERNAMA