GTE Directories Corporation and IT Network Inc. announce five-year strategic audiotex services alliance

DALLAS -- GTE Directories Corporation (GTE) and IT Network, Inc. (IT Network), a wholly owned subsidiary of Source Media Corporation (Source), both based in Dallas, today announced that they have entered into a five-year strategic alliance in which GTE will purchase audiotex services from IT Network, including content development and customer service support. In addition, IT Network will become GTE's sales agent for audiotex advertiser sponsorships featured in the front section of select GTE The Everything Pagesr directories. As part of the agreement, GTE will sell its current audiotex operations to IT Network. Financial details of the agreement were not announced.

IT Network will run the audiotex operations at the current facility at GTE's Central Region Headquarters in Irving, Texas. A full transition of operations is expected by Feb. 28, 1997.

"We are very pleased and excited about this agreement," said GTE Directories' Senior Vice President Marilyn Neal. "It provides us with several key opportunities for new revenue by leveraging IT Network's strengths in audiotex content and customer service, while also benefiting from a sales force solely dedicated to selling audiotex in our current and planned markets. Additionally, this alliance will allow us to reallocate our resources to focus on other growth opportunities."

"This strategic alliance with GTE offers a number of significant opportunities to our company," added IT Network's Telephone Division CEO Dan Maitland. "Adding the strong GTE markets will increase the number of Yellow Pages directories we support to more than 50 million. The GTE audiotex group has an award-winning production and service facility. Merging it with our existing Dallas and recently acquired R.H. Donnelley audiotex operations will ensure that our services offered to publishers are of the highest quality in the industry."

Both Neal and Maitland stressed that they expect the transition of the operations from GTE to IT Network to be virtually seamless, since IT Network will utilize GTE's existing facility and equipment and will employ some of its former audiotex employees. GTE Directories is a leader in the business of linking buyers and sellers through effective advertising and information media. The company provides sales and other directory-related services for more than 2,400 directories worldwide, with a total circulation of 80 million copies. It develops and markets new media services, such as Superpages interactive service , a premier Internet-based advertising and information resource. The company also manages GTE Card Services, a provider of pre-paid calling cards through nearly 4,000 U.S. retail locations and the GTE VISA and MasterCard to over one million customers. GTE Directories was a 1994 winner of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which recognizes U.S. companies with outstanding quality management systems. It is a unit of GTE Corporation, Stamford, Conn.

Source Media is a leader in the interactive programming and services industry. Source Media's IT Network, Inc., is found in over 40 million directories across the country and offers access to free information of topics ranging from health and legal to national sports, weather and news. Source Media recently launched the Interactive ChannelK , an online television programming service capable of delivering interactive news, weather, sports, shopping and education services on demand over today's cable systems.