NPT.L Regulatory News (NPT)

28 Jun 2007 08:02

Netplay TV PLC28 June 2007 28 June 2007 NetPlay TV plc AGM Statement At the AGM of NetPlay TV plc this morning, the Chairman and Chief Executive,Martin Higginson, will make the following statement: "Over the last six months your company has undergone a radical transformation,and today we believe we are well poised to become market leaders in theprovision of interactive gaming solutions across both Internet and TV media. In the last six months we have disposed of Stream Live Services Limited,Pan-American Mobile Inc., closed down our loss-making MChex business andstreamlined our mobile chat business. In addition, we have acquired the "LiveRoulette" brand through Vegas 247 Limited, plus the "PlayMonday" lottery fromChariot (UK) plc and Abstract Games Limited. We have also been working solidlyfor the past five months on the launch of "Big Box Bingo" - our fullyinteractive TV bingo game. We now sit with what we believe is one of the best teams in the interactivegaming industry, and the mixture of knowledge and expertise within the Groupmakes us truly unique in this emerging marketplace. Experts from the bingo,interactive print media, TV production, and direct response marketing arenashave been brought together to form a first class and formidable team. We currently offer three areas of interactive gaming, "Live Roulette", a weeklyCharity Draw and Bingo - all of these games are televised live on various Skychannels, as well as being simultaneously streamed to the Internet. Users playthe games either using their telephone or via the Internet through our websites. Since acquiring the "Live Roulette" business in December 2006 we have instigateda major marketing push, as well as making improvements to both the show and thewebsite. I am particularly pleased to report that gross bets have doubled sinceacquisition to circa £7m a month with June 2007 on target to exceed this. We will continue our marketing drive for the remainder of 2007 with a view toincreasing customers and gross monthly bets throughout the rest of the year. "Live Roulette" has recently moved into profit on a monthly basis and we are nowreaping the benefits of our marketing expenditure. We anticipate deliveringsolid growth in the second half of 2007. In January of this year we acquired the "PlayMonday" charity lottery fromChariot (UK) plc. Over the past few months we have revamped the product,re-launching it as a fixed odds charity draw on June 11th. The new formatincludes a live televised broadcast of a weekly £10 million Super Draw as wellas two new games, Play Three and Play Four, offering prizes of £10,000 and£50,000 respectively. Early signs are encouraging; having exceeded 70,000 ticket sales in the secondweek following re-launch - much earlier than we had expected. We will continueto work with our charity partners, giving them the necessary marketing materialto allow them to grow sales and generate more money for their charity.. (20% ofall ticket sales go to the charity the customer chooses). The acquisition of Abstract Games Limited in February brought more skills to thebusiness in terms of bingo and direct response marketing. Furthermore, wegained a database of over 550,000 names and addresses - all of whom have playedan interactive draw or quiz type game over the previous six months. We believethis database will prove invaluable in the marketing of the "PlayMonday"service. This, added to the 280,000 names and addresses "PlayMonday" has takenthe Group customer base to well over 800,000. Finally, on 3rd July - next week - we will launch our Big Box Bingo game in aBeta test format. We aim to offer a highly interactive game involving realbingo cards which the consumer will mark off against a live TV programme. Thiswe believe is a first in interactive gaming, merging the thrill of the bingohall, the flexibility of the Internet and the ease of participating from thecomfort of home. The recent surge in Internet bingo has encouraged us to invest heavily in thisproduct launch. We have developed a bespoke computer back-end that allowscustomers to not only register and deposit funds on line, but also allows themto print unique bingo cards and then play them from home against our live TVshow. This is a real first for bingo and interactive TV gaming. Overall, we are pleased with the progress we have made in the last seven months;we have achieved everything we set out to do. We are now ready to take maximumadvantage of the many opportunities that lie ahead. We now have a coherent business model that merges the flexibility of theInternet with the trusted medium of live TV. This combined with our activedatabase and diverse operational knowledge will allow us to further develop ourinteractive gaming formats and to look forward to the second half of the yearwith confidence." - ENDS - Enquiries NetPlay TV plc Martin Higginson Via Redleaf Redleaf Communications Tel: 020 7822 0200 Emma Kane/Sanna Lehtinen/Susan Quigley Teather & Greenwood Tel: 020 7426 9000 Sindre Ottesen This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange