Viacom and Yahoo! Strike Multi-Year Search Marketing Deal

[Rappy Veteran]

NEW YORK and SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Viacom (NYSE: VIA - News, VIA.B - News) and Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO - News) today announced a multi-year partnership under which Yahoo! will serve as the exclusive provider of sponsored search and contextual ads to all of Viacom's 33 broadband sites, including MTV.com, VH1.com, Nickelodeon.com, comedycentral.com and BET.com, with potential expansion to more than 140 additional Viacom websites across the globe. The ads will be powered by Yahoo!'s newly launched search marketing system, known by its project name "Panama".

Philippe Dauman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Viacom, said, "This far reaching partnership brings together world-class content and technology for the benefit of users and advertisers alike. Yahoo! has made impressive strides with its new search marketing system. As a global leader in content for every screen and platform, we couldn't be more pleased to have them as a partner and we look forward to growing our relationship even more over time."

Yahoo! provides search marketing products and services to hundreds of thousands of advertisers in 22 countries worldwide. Currently available in the U.S., Yahoo!'s new search marketing system is designed to deliver even more relevant sponsored search and contextual ad results to users. By encouraging advertisers to focus on the quality of their sponsored search and contextual advertisements, Yahoo!'s new system creates a more valuable marketplace for users, advertisers and publishers.

"Viacom is a global leader in entertainment that shares Yahoo!'s commitment to connecting users to the content, products and services for which they are looking while respecting copyrights and other intellectual property rights at the same time," said Terry Semel, chairman and chief executive officer, Yahoo! Inc. "Aligning Viacom's popular brands, leading content and large audience with Yahoo!'s more targeted, relevant advertising, marks the beginning of a powerful and engaging partnership between our two companies."

"Our strategy is to provide our audiences with the most immersive entertainment experience possible - on every platform, and this deal with Yahoo! increases the monetization of our growing online portfolio," said Judy McGrath, Chairman and CEO of MTV Networks.

Viacom is the number-one online entertainment destination and the 11th most-popular overall destination on the Web. In February 2007, more than 90 million unique viewers flocked to Viacom's online properties, which include an array of MTVN and BETN Web sites, as well as its other online properties (according to Internal Web Analytics Tracking and duplication from comScore Media Metrix February 2007). The company's sites continue to hit new highs in traffic and streaming video. MTV.com delivered a record 84 million streams in January, exceeded that mark in February with 85.1 million streams and again in March set a new record with 93.1 million. MTV.com also delivered a record 25.6 million unique visitors in March. Also in March, Nickelodeon's online properties had their strongest monthly performance, with Nick.com pulling in almost 19 million unique users and TurboNick posted more than 80 million streams. comedycentral.com had its best month ever for total traffic in March, with 10.7 million unique visitors.

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