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$280 Million Acquisition Gives CBS One of the Largest Social Platforms with

More Than 15 Million Active Users In More than 200 Countries

    NEW YORK, May 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CBS Corporation (NYSE:   CBS.A
 and CBS) has acquired Last.fm, a global, community-based, music discovery
 network, it was announced today by Leslie Moonves, President and CEO of CBS
 Corporation. CBS purchased the property which is one of the largest social
 platforms online for $280 million in cash. Last.fm currently has more than
 15 million active users in more than 200 countries. This acquisition
 follows a number of CBS Interactive announcements including the purchase of
 Wallstrip.com, investments in Joost and Spot Runner and the recent
 expansion of the CBS Audience Network to include a total of 25 online
 partners.
     "Last.fm is one of the most well established, fastest growing online
 community networks out there," said Moonves. "They have a great management
 team that understands how to build an engaged and passionate community
 where users learn, discover and share music globally. Their demographics
 also play perfectly to CBS's goal to attract younger viewers and listeners
 across our businesses. Last.fm adds a terrific interactive extension to all
 of our properties and also is a huge step in CBS Corporation's overall
 strategy of expanding our reach online to transition from a content company
 into an audience company."
     As part of the acquisition, the Last.fm team, including founders Felix
 Miller, Martin Stiksel and Richard Jones, will continue to independently
 run the online network. The Last.fm management team will work with all
 relevant CBS divisions to apply their community-building and technology
 expertise to extend CBS businesses online and within the mobile space.
     "We looked at a lot of companies to provide a base for CBS's investment
 in online reach, and found Last.fm to be poised at an inflection point -
 balancing fast growth, a sticky community and the opportunity for
 monetization that does not distract the user," said Quincy Smith,
 President, CBS Interactive.
     "This is an exciting new opportunity for Last.fm," said Felix Miller,
 co- founder and CEO of Last.fm. "We have been delighted with the way the
 site has grown in terms of users and the services we offer. CBS understood
 our strategy from the first meeting and realized how our platform could
 ultimately apply to all forms of media. Last.fm and CBS share a vision of
 intelligent, personalized media and smarter social networking. This
 partnership will help us push these innovations even further and provide
 huge benefits to our community. Together, Last.fm and CBS will offer a new
 way for people to consume media."
     Added Moonves, "Music has the unique ability to unite large groups of
 people and engage them around a shared passion. Part of our interactive
 strategy has been to build communities around all of our properties. CBS
 Radio has given us a powerful way to create such communities for decades,
 and it continues to do so. With Last.fm we're adding a next-generation
 platform to allow audiences to communicate with us and each other as never
 before."
     Founded in 2002, Last.fm creates communities around music by bringing
 together listeners, artists and music. Through its unique "scrobbling"
 technology and social recommendation engine, Last.fm builds a comprehensive
 profile of each user's musical taste and leverages each user's song list to
 make highly personalized recommendations, connect users who share similar
 tastes, provide custom radio streams and other music related community
 features. In addition, the site has an "Events" listing that can recommend
 over 200,000 festival and music events globally.
     Last.fm has a sizable global footprint spanning more than 200 countries
 with the largest concentration of users in the United States, Britain,
 Germany, Poland, Brazil, and Japan. Last.fm's large and growing user base
 is predominately young, engaged and very involved on the site.
     Last.fm has partnership arrangements with many major music labels and
 is dedicated to providing its service in compliance with its agreements
 with applicable rights holders.
     Last.fm has received funding from Index Ventures as well as select
 individual investors such as Stefan Glaenzer, Reid Hoffman, and Joi Ito. To
 find out more about Last.fm, go to http://www.last.fm
     CBS Corporation (NYSE:   CBS.A and CBS) is a mass media company with
 constituent parts that reach back to the beginnings of the broadcast
 industry, as well as newer businesses that operate on the leading edge of
 the media industry. The Company, through its many and varied operations,
 combines broad reach with well-positioned local businesses, all of which
 provide it with an extensive distribution network by which it serves
 audiences and advertisers in all 50 states and key international markets.
 It has operations in virtually every field of media and entertainment,
 including broadcast television (CBS and The CW - a joint venture between
 CBS Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment), cable television (Showtime
 and CSTV Networks), local television (CBS Television Stations), television
 production and syndication (CBS Paramount Network Television and CBS
 Television Distribution), radio (CBS Radio), advertising on out-of-home
 media (CBS Outdoor), publishing (Simon & Schuster), interactive media (CBS
 Interactive), music (CBS Records), licensing and merchandising (CBS
 Consumer Products) and video/ DVD (CBS Home Entertainment). For more
 information, log on to http://www.cbscorporation.com.
 
 

SOURCE CBS Corp.

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