Exhibit 99
For Immediate Release
BIG ENTERTAINMENT CLOSES ON ACQUISITION OF HOLLYWOOD.COM
BIG ENTERTAINMENT ALSO COMPLETES ACQUISITION OF CINEMASOURCE
Boca Raton, FL, (May 20, 1999) -- Big Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIGE) today
announced that it completed its acquisition of hollywood.com, Inc., formerly
Hollywood Online Inc., from The Times Mirror Company. Hollywood.com is a premier
movie website that features movie reviews, movie trailers, celebrity chats, and
bios on actors and directors, with over one million Web pages of movie content.
Page impressions on Hollywood.com during March and April 1999 totaled over 46
million, with an average of more than 2.2 million unique monthly users.
BigE today also announced that it completed the acquisition of the assets of
CinemaSource, Inc., the nation's largest provider of movie showtimes listings to
the Internet industry. CinemaSource provides movie showtimes to Yahoo!, Excite,
MSN, Go Network, CitySearch, Zip2, and numerous other websites.
BigE plans to combine its bige.com website, which is one of the Internet's
largest e-commerce movie studio stores, and Hollywood.com, to form a movie
content and movie merchandise Internet supersite, all under the Hollywood.com
brand.
"The combination of the Hollywood.com brand, bige.com's studio store and
CinemaSource's movie listings will offer users a one-stop Internet supersite for
movie content, showtimes, and movie merchandise," said Mitchell Rubenstein,
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BigE.
"Our acquisitions of Hollywood.com and CinemaSource are a major step in our plan
to create the dominant Internet movie-related website," added Mr. Rubenstein.
"In addition, our recently announced pending transaction with CBS will provide
the national branding for our online movie supersite that should ensure our
visibility to a wide range of viewers as the top destination for everything
about movies."
Thomas Unterman, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Times
Mirror, said, "We are enthusiastic about the prospects for the combined
business, which will be the leader in its category on the web. We are very
pleased with our new investment in BigE." Mr. Unterman will be joining the Board
of Directors of BigE.
BigE acquired hollywood.com, Inc. from Times Mirror for approximately 2.3
million common shares and a one-year note for approximately $1.9 million. The
Times Mirror stake represents approximately 16.5% of BigE's outstanding common
shares after giving effect to the acquisitions.
BigE purchased CinemaSource's assets for $6.5 million in cash and approximately
435,000 of its common shares. Funding for the cash portion of the purchase price
in the CinemaSource acquisition came from the proceeds of a private placement of
approximately 570,000 BigE common shares at a price per share of $21.25, which
raised approximately $12 million, before closing costs. Investors in the private
placement also received warrants exerciseable for approximately 190,000 common
shares at an exercise price of $21.25 per share. The remaining proceeds from the
private placement will be used to pay transaction costs of the acquisitions and
for working capital purposes. Wasserstein Perella Securities, Inc. acted as sole
placement agent for the private placement.
About Hollywood.com
Hollywood.com (www.hollywood.com) is a premier website for movies. The
award-winning website features one of the Web's largest collections of
movie-related multimedia, including movie trailers, movie soundtracks, photos
and exclusive interactive games. Hollywood.com also offers visitors current
movie, laserdisc, and movie soundtrack information, as well as local movie
theaters' showtimes, daily Hollywood news, celebrity interviews, listings of
movies on TV, a searchable database with over 130,000 movies and 850,000 cast
and crew credits, movie reviews, box office charts, and interactive forums.
Hollywood.com also offers a weekly e-mail dispatch and coverage of premieres,
film festivals and events.
BIG ENTERTAINMENT CLOSES ON ACQUISITION OF HOLLYWOOD.COM
BIG ENTERTAINMENT ALSO COMPLETES ACQUISITION OF CINEMASOURCE
May 20, 1999
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About bige.com
bige.com is an online movie studio store offering thousands of entertainment
products from Hollywood studios and popular culture. bige.com sells merchandise
based on movies and popular culture including items such as apparel, action
figures, games, plush, collectibles and posters. bige.com is available on the
Web at www.bige.com as well as on many popular websites, including
www.usatoday.com, www.broadcast.com, Excite, IMDb, www.Film.com, and the
AdvanceNet websites (www.nj.com, www.mlive.com, www.cleveland.com,
www.oregonlive.com, www.rainorshine.com, www.mardigras.com, and www.yucky.com).
About CinemaSource
CinemaSource is the nation's largest distributor of movie showtimes to the
Internet industry. The largest media companies (and many of the small ones too)
rely on CinemaSource for their movie related informational needs. Its customers
include Yahoo!, Excite, MSN, CitySearch, Zip2, The New York Times, Knight
Ridder, AdvanceNet, and others.
About Big Entertainment
Big Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIGE) was founded by Mitchell Rubenstein and
Laurie S. Silvers, who earlier founded the Sci-Fi Channel(TM). Big Entertainment
owns Hollywood.com, bige.com, and CinemaSource, a combination of movie-related
Internet businesses that are being combined under the "Hollywood.com" brand. Big
Entertainment also owns entertainment properties created for it by best-selling
authors and media celebrities, including Leonard Nimoy and Mickey Spillane.
CBS Corporation and BigE recently announced that they have signed an agreement
in principle for CBS to receive an initial 35% ownership interest (with warrants
to purchase an additional 5% ownership position) in Hollywood.com, bige.com and
CinemaSource in exchange for $100 million of promotion and content support over
a period of seven years. Big Entertainment will own 65% of the joint venture.
Completion of the CBS joint venture is subject to finalizing transaction
documents and customary closing conditions.
Note: Page impressions and unique user information sources are I/Pro and Accrue,
respectively.
(The matters discussed herein that are forward-looking statements are based on
current management expectations that involve risks and uncertainties that may
result in such expectations not being realized. Potential risks and
uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risks described in Big
Entertainment's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.)
Contacts
For Big Entertainment:
Mitchell Rubenstein Mark Cohen
Phone: 561-998-8000 The Pinnacle Group (Investor Relations)
Email: mitch@bige.com Phone: 516-773-2477
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