Back to press releasesNEWARK, N.J. – November 14, 2001 – IDT Corporation (NYSE: IDT, IDT.B), a leading multinational carrier and telephone company, today announced that its subsidiary, IDT Ventures, Inc., has acquired Talk America Radio Network, one of North America¹s leading providers of talk radio programming. This represents the first step in IDT¹s previously announced intention to build a media company.
“Just about everyone listens to radio. Millions of people all over the country have their radios on all day long,” said Howard Jonas, IDT¹s Chairman. “That¹s why we decided to start our media company with Talk America. Their programs feature some of the best known personalities on the air and cover just about every possible taste and interest, and their extensive distribution means they can reach just about everyone.”
Talk America provides an extensive range of programming to radio stations across North America. Its popular shows cover everything from politics to boxing, medicine to decorating, and include such established favorites as “The Bruce Williams Show,” The Right Side with Armstrong Williams,” “Ring Talk with Pedro Fernandez,” “Dr. Gabe Mirkin,” and “A Matter of Taste with Rachel and David Michael Cane.”
“We’re thrilled to become part of the IDT family,” said Paul Lyle, Talk America¹s President. “With their strong commitment to expanding into media and our proven expertise in broadcast production and syndication, we¹ll be able to create exciting new properties and deliver them to even more stations throughout the U. S. and Canada.”
Talk America syndicates shows on more than 600 radio stations. Currently based in Las Vegas, Talk America will move its operations to new, state-of-the-art facilities in the IDT Building in Newark early next year.
“IDT is about communications – making it easy, affordable, and accessible to everyone,” said Jim Courter, IDT¹s CEO and Vice Chairman. “That¹s why expanding into media – especially radio – represents such a logical way for us to grow. Talk America fits perfectly with all our efforts to provide the very best in communications.”
“Talk America is just our first step in building a premier media company,” said Charles Garner, CEO of IDT Ventures, Inc. “We are currently evaluating other media and broadcast properties, and plan to make additional investments in the future.”
IDT CORPORATION
IDT is a leading facilities-based, multinational carrier that provides a broad range of telecommunications services to its wholesale and retail customers worldwide.
Through its own national telecommunications backbone and fiber optic network infrastructure, IDT provides its customers with integrated and competitively priced international and domestic long distance telephony and prepaid calling cards. IDT Ventures is the IDT subsidiary responsible for the Company¹s initiatives outside of its core telecom business. Through its IDT Investments subsidiary, IDT has equity interests in several telecom and Internet-related companies.
Except for historical information, all of the expectations and assumptions contained in the foregoing are forward-looking statements, within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, involving risks and uncertainties. These statements refer to our plans to implement our growth strategy, improve our financial performance, expand our infrastructure, develop new products and services, expand our customer base and enter international markets. The forward looking statements also include our expectations concerning factors affecting the markets for our products, including the demand for long distance telecommunications, and Internet access services. These forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results that we anticipate. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those risks discussed in this release. In addition to the factors specifically noted in the forward looking statements, other important factors that could result in those differences include (a) general economic conditions in the telecommunications and Internet markets, including inflation, recession, interest rates, and other economic factors; (b) casualty to or other disruption of our facilities and operations; (c) those discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10K for the period ended July 31, 2001 and (d) other factors that generally affect the business of telecommunications, Internet and other communications companies. We assume no obligation to update these forward looking statements or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from the results anticipated in the forward looking statements.
