LONDON, September 30 /PRNewswire/ --

- Independent Research Firm Generates First Statistically Valid Report 
on Industry Following Three Month Analysis of News Stories Resulting From 
Press Releases

Press releases distributed by PR Newswire get used by media more often
than copy from competing services and generate more clips when they are
picked up, according to a landmark study of commercial newswires.

To view the Multimedia News Release, please click:
http://www.prnewswire.com/mnr/prnewswire/35169/

The comprehensive study was conducted by the market research and
intelligence firm Diagnostics Plus (http://www.diagnosticsplus.com/). Other
third party data from web analytics providers shows PR Newswire outperforms
its peers in web traffic rank and reach and in blog links, as well.

"Our entire team is gratified that an impartial review of our industry
has verified that there is a significant difference in newswire services,"
said Dave Armon, President of PR Newswire. "In our estimation, this study
verifies a long held belief within PR Newswire that successful news
dissemination is more than simply putting a release over a wire. Consistent
and impactful coverage requires a combination of state of the art technology,
the ability to simultaneously issue news on a global scale and in an
extremely targeted manner, and a deep understanding of the media industry, in
all its forms. To this point, we have always treated the news media as if
they were our clients. This dedication, we believe, has endowed PR Newswire
with a high level of credibility and trust that pays off in better results
for issuers."

THE STUDY

To objectively gauge media pick up of press releases distributed by PR
Newswire and its competitors - Business Wire, Marketwire and Nasdaq owned
PrimeNewswire, which has since been re-branded as GlobeNewswire - PR Newswire
engaged Diagnostics Plus, an independent market research company located in
State College, Pa. On each business day from April 1 to June 30, 20 press
releases, five per US wire service, were randomly selected and tracked using
the online content libraries LexisNexis and Factiva for media pickup over a
two week period. A pick up was defined as any reference to the release
subject matter in media published after the date and time of the release.
Republication of the release without alteration was not counted as pick up.

"The release selection process was designed to minimise bias and produce
a truly random sampling," said Jim Fong, president of Diagnostics Plus and
head of the five person team that conducted the study. "The goal of the study
was to measure the frequency with which media outlets pick up press releases
from each of the major newswire services and the volume of coverage that
those announcements received."

PR Newswire beat its competitors across all categories measured,
according to the study.

Press releases transmitted by PR Newswire were used 55% of the time,
versus Marketwire's 43% pickup rate, Business Wire's rate of 38% and a rate
of 37% by PrimeNewswire, according to the study. The difference between PR
Newswire's rate of pick up in comparison to the other wire services produced
a statistically significant p-value of 0.0003. A p-value of 0.05 is the
generally accepted mark of significance in scientific research. 0.01
indicates extreme significance.

Of those releases attracting attention by the media, the volume of
coverage was highest with PR Newswire, followed by Business Wire,
PrimeNewswire and Marketwire. PR Newswire has nearly twice the pick up
frequency as PrimeNewswire and more than twice that of Marketwire. Pick up
frequency, the number of times a single press release was reported in the
media, was also significant between PR Newswire and the combined average of
other services, producing a p-value of 0.0298.

Ken Dowell, Executive Vice President of Products for PR Newswire,
commented, "The study affirms the quality of content that is delivered by PR
Newswire as well as the effectiveness of our media relations, including our
PR Newswire for Journalists web site that has registered 100,000 journalists
since launching in 1998."

A variety of third party measures also indicate that PR Newswire leads
its competitors in new media realms. For example, by two measures, Quantcast
(http://www.quantcast.com/profile/traffic-compare?domain0=prnewswire.com&doma
in1=businesswire.com&domain2=marketwire.com&domain3=primenewswire.com&domain4
=) and Compete.com 
(http://siteanalytics.compete.com/prnewswire.com+businesswire.com+marketwire
com/?metric=uv), the daily average number of unique visitors to 
prnewswire.com (http://prnewswire.com/) was double that of businesswire.com 
in August.

(Due to the length of the above URLs, it may be necessary to copy and 
paste these hyperlinks into your Internet browser's URL address field. 
Remove the space if one exists.)

"Our content has been referred to in more blog posts, Diggs and Delicious
Links than any other commercial wire service," said Dave Armon. "PR Newswire
has the highest Google page rank in our industry, and has been referenced as
a source on Wikipedia more than any other wire service as well. We believe
this proves PR Newswire is the most trusted and credible source for news from
the corporate and public policy sectors."

About PR Newswire

PR Newswire Association LLC (http://www.prnewswire.com/) provides
electronic distribution, targeting, measurement and broadcast services on
behalf of tens of thousands of corporate, government, association, labor,
non-profit, and other customers worldwide. Using PR Newswire, these
organisations reach a variety of critical audiences including the news media,
the investment community, government decision-makers, and the general public
with their up to the minute, full text news developments.

Established in 1954, PR Newswire has offices in 14 countries and
routinely sends its customers' news to outlets in more than 170 countries and
in more than 40 languages. Utilising the latest in communications technology,
PR Newswire content is considered a mainstay among news reporters, investors
and individuals who seek breaking news from the source. PR Newswire is a
subsidiary of United Business Media of London.

About Diagnostics Plus

Diagnostics Plus has been serving clients for over two decades. The
company specialises in providing market and media research for clients in a
variety of sectors. Diagnostics Plus has worked with more than 700
organisations in 18 countries and is a member of several major research
organisations including the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research
(CMOR), Market Research Association (MRA) and the Council of American Survey
Research Organizations (CASRO).

Media Contacts:

Jason Rando on behalf of PR Newswire +1-646-536-7025
Or email jrando@theruthgroup.com

Samantha Proctor, Marketing Communications Director, PR Newswire Europe
+44(0)20-7454-5115 Or email samantha.proctor@prnewswire.co.uk

For full information on PR Newswire products and services email
marketing@prnewswire.co.uk Or go to http://www.prnewswire.co.uk