January 09, 2008 11:00 AM Eastern Time 

Business Wire Announces Distribution Agreement with CanWest, Canada's Leading Print, Broadcast and Online Properties

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Business Wire today announced a broad-based distribution agreement with CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc., a part of Canada's largest and most diversified media company, that will provide its members with extensive reach to Canada's most influential print, broadcast and online media properties.

CanWest owns and operates CanWest News Service (CNS), Canada's leading news organization providing high quality original content on international and national news, topics and events. The company's other properties include 11 of Canada's major newspaper titles, Global Television, and the canada.com network, one of the nation's top news and information websites.

CanWest operates Canada's largest newspaper chain and has the largest combined daily paid English newspaper readership and circulation in Canada. Its newspaper group includes National Post, The Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province, Victoria Times Colonist, Regina Leader-Post, Saskatoon StarPhoenix and The Windsor Star. Other leading provincial papers subscribe to CNS--including the Winnipeg Free Press and the Halifax Daily News--as well as many community, weekly and controlled circulation newspapers.

The company's broadcast division includes Global Television, a coast-to-coast conventional television network reaching more than 96% of English-speaking Canada, and E!, which broadcasts into the top five major markets in Canada. CanWest's market-leading influence extends to the Internet with the popular canada.com network, which receives 4.7 million unique visitors per month (October 2007 - comScore Media Metrix).

Business Wire releases will be transmitted via CNS in full-text over QuickWire, CanWest's proprietary content distribution software. Business Wire releases will be hosted online at the Financial Post, Canada's leading source for business news, on a designated page, and highlighted on CanWest's newspaper websites. As well, canada.com will promote the availability of Business Wire releases throughout its online network.

"We are extremely proud to partner with the CanWest organization, and to provide our members with extensive reach to CanWest's unparalleled distribution network," said Cathy Baron Tamraz, Business Wire's president and CEO, in making the announcement. "CanWest has immediately established itself as Canada's leading news service in terms of its singular ability to directly reach the newsrooms of Canada's agenda-setting media."

"At CanWest, we're in the business of providing our audiences with compelling and breaking news where and how they want it," said Dennis Skulsky, president and CEO, CanWest Publishing. "Our unique association with Business Wire allows us to provide even more of the latest business information than ever to our readers through our online publications and to our subscribers to CanWest News Service."

About Business Wire

Business Wire, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is utilized by thousands of member companies and organizations to transmit their full-text news releases, regulatory filings, photos and other multimedia content to journalists, news media, trade publications, institutional and individual investors, financial information services, regulatory authorities, Internet portals, information web sites, business-to-business decision-makers and consumers worldwide. With a news distribution network spanning 150 countries and 45 languages, Business Wire's multi-channel delivery network has access to dozens of international and national news agency networks throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The Business Wire news network is powered by its patented NX high-speed data platform and supports XML, XHTML and XBRL code to deliver the most sophisticated news file to enhance news release interactivity, customization and search engine optimization. Business Wire has 31 bureaus in cities including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Paris, Frankfurt, London, Brussels, Tokyo, Toronto and Sydney with reciprocal offices throughout the world. Business Wire was founded in 1961. Cathy Baron Tamraz is president and CEO.