Back to press releasesNewark, NJ, March 13, 2003 – Talk America Radio Networks today announced that it is launching “The Best of Talk America Weekend.” Listeners will now be able to hear Talk America’s most popular programs on Saturdays and Sundays. Talk America is part of IDT Media, a subsidiary of IDT Corporation (NYSE: IDT.B, IDT.C).
“The Best of Talk America Weekend” will broadcast from noon until midnight and include:
· “The Shmuley Boteach Show,” hosted by the award-winning Shmuley Boteach, offers listeners powerful and thought-provoking talk radio covering a wide range of topics. Shmuley has interviewed such guests as Shimon Peres, Bob Scheiffer, Mikhail Gorbachev and Robert Weiner
· Listeners to the “Ask Heloise” show can get advice on important consumer issues, home and garden maintenance, pets, automobiles, savvy shopping, entertaining, saving money and traveling smarter
· “The Dr. Gabe Mirkin Show” is a fast-paced, informative and entertaining radio show focusing on the latest medical breakthroughs
· The “Lowell Ponte” show covers a wide range of topics including space exploration, nutrition, and foreign affairs. Lowell Ponte has been a proven success in generating ratings on the weekend
· The award-winning, nationally syndicated “Barry Farber Show,” examines topics of importance from gangs to politics
· The award-winning “Bruce Williams Show” is one of the nation’s most listened to late night radio programs
“Producing original weekend talk programming is very expensive for radio stations and probably out of reach for stations in smaller markets. Many stations don’t have the resources to do it at all,” said Jim Courter, IDT’s CEO. “Offering ‘The Best of Talk America Weekend’ provides quality programming to our affiliates and at the same time, saves them money.”
“Since Talk America launched a new weekday line up in the Fall of last year, we’ve seen our ad sales almost double, our audience increased from 3 million to more that 5 million average weekly listeners and we’ve increased our station affiliations,” said Trang Nguyen, COO of Talk America Radio Networks. “Given our weekday success, it seemed only natural to offer our programs on the weekends. We plan to expand our weekend programming even further in the coming months.”
Talk America personalities can be heard by more than 5 million listeners a week on more than 700 affiliate radio stations nationwide and on the Talk America website, www.talkamerica.com. Talk America Radio Networks was acquired by IDT Media in November of 2001.
IDT Corporation, through its IDT Telecom subsidiary, is a facilities-based, multinational carrier that provides a broad range of telecommunications services to its retail and wholesale customers worldwide. IDT Telecom, by means of its own national telecommunications backbone and fiber optic network infrastructure, provides its customers with integrated and competitively priced international and domestic long distance telephony and prepaid calling cards. IDT and Liberty Media Corporation own 95% and 5 % of IDT Telecom, respectively. IDT acquired the assets of Winstar Communications in December 2001.
IDT Corporation common shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols IDT.B and IDT. As of December 12, 2002, there were about 54.1 million shares of Class B common stock (IDT.B) outstanding, and about 25.0 million shares of common stock (IDT.C). Of these, approximately 4.0 million shares of Class B common stock and approximately 5.4 million shares of common stock were held by IDT Corporation.
On January 9, 2003, IDT announced that it is changing its New York Stock Exchange ticker symbols. Effective February 26, IDT’s common stock began trading under the symbol IDT.C. Effective March 19, IDT’s Class B common stock will trade under the symbol IDT.
In this press release, all statements that are not purely about historical facts, including, but not limited to, those in which we use the words “believe,” “anticipate,” “expect,” “plan,” “intend,” “estimate, “target” and similar expressions, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While these forward-looking statements represent our current judgment of what may happen in the future, actual results may differ materially from the results expressed or implied by these statements due to numerous important factors, including, but not limited to, those described in our most recent report on SEC Form 10-K (under the heading “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”), which may be revised or supplemented in subsequent reports on SEC Forms 10-Q and 8-K. These factors include, but are not limited to, the following: potential declines in prices for our products and services; our ability to maintain and grow our retail telecommunications services, particularly our prepaid calling card business; availability of termination capacity; financial stability of our customers; our ability to maintain carrier agreements with foreign carriers; effectiveness of our marketing and distribution efforts; increased competition, particularly from regional bell operating companies; our ability to manage our growth; competitiveness of our Winstar subsidiary; impact of government regulation; our ability to obtain telecommunications products or services required for our products and services; and general economic conditions, particularly in the telecommunications markets. We are under no obligation, and expressly disclaim any obligation, to update the forward-looking statements in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
