Hamburg, February 1, 2007
Gruner + Jahr is acquiring the majority of shares in the Entertainment Media Verlag GmbH & Co KG, Munich (EMV), retroactively to Jan 1, 2007. The selling parties are the imprint´s founder and managing partner Ulrich Scheele (15.05 percent) and his longtime partner, the Ebner Ulm publishing group (82.85 percent). This gives G+J a roughly 98-percent majority in EMV. Approximately two percent of the shares will continue to be owned by Ulrich Scheele, who will continue to run the imprint as its Managing Director. The purchase is subject to antitrust approval.

Established in 1980, Entertainment Media Verlag is Germany´s leading special-interest imprint in the field of entertainment (movies, film, video/DVD, music and games). Its broad portfolio of trade and customer magazines, online media and works of reference caters both to B2B and to consumer target groups. EMV also has one of the largest content databases in the entertainment sector.

Bernd Buchholz, a member of the G+J Executive Board and Director G+J Germany, commented: "By taking over the Entertainment Media imprint, Gruner + Jahr is expanding into thematic sectors not previously covered by our publishing company. The online activities in particular and the comprehensive database – which includes audiovisual content – opens up opportunities for strategic evolution and expansion. The focus will be on a continued building of digital media offerings, which we are pursuing intensively as part of Gruner + Jahr´s ´Expand your Brand´ innovation process."

The cornerstones of EMV´s business are five special publications for the various sub-sectors of the entertainment industry: "Blickpunkt Film," "Videowoche," "Videomarkt," "Musikwoche" and "Gamesmarkt" magazines, are of which are published weekly or biweekly. Several times a year, EMV also publishes various supplements and special issues on special industry topics, such as "Kids Entertainment" and the reference works "Entertainment Market Guide" and "Kinohandbuch" (Guide to Movies). EMV is the market leader in the special publications sector.

EMV reaches target consumers with six customer magazines, each of which is widely distributed. Most of these magazines are published monthly; they have a combined distributed circulation of up to 2.2 million copies. EMV also commands a market-leading position in the various segments of the customer magazines business.

EMV´s online offerings include the market-leading entertainment site "kino.de," a multi-channel portal for movies, videos, games and music. Kino.de currently generates nearly 13 million Page Impressions a month. Other items in the portfolio are the trade information site "mediabiz.de" and several other online activities. The online range is rounded off with "livepaper," a digital magazine that combines the layout and handling of the print version of "Musikwoche" with embedded multimedia features such as audio- or videoclips.

All publications are fed from EMV´s vast content pool, which contains more than a million entries.

Alexander Adler
Chief of External Communications
Tel.: +49-40-3703-2244
E-Mail: adler.alexander@guj.de