MediaBay's Soundsgood.com Teams With MSN Music to Launch Co-Branded Private Label Audiobook Store

MediaBay's Soundsgood.com Teams With MSN Music to Launch Co-Branded Private Label Audiobook Store

New Subscription Service Offers Extensive Audiobook Library to Millions of MSN Visitors for Download and Use on PCs, Windows Media-based Music Players and Windows Mobile-based Smart Phones

CEDAR KNOLLS, N.J., Dec. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MediaBay, Inc. (NASDAQ:MBAY), a leading digital media and publishing company specializing in spoken word and premium audio entertainment, today announced that its vast collection of digital audiobooks is now available for download through a new co-branded audiobook store at http://music.msn.com/ or http://msn.soundsgood.com/.

The distribution agreement, which provides a co-branded subscription service and audiobook store on Microsoft's MSN Music, is MediaBay's first private label storefront. The relationship is a substantial development for MediaBay, significantly expanding the company's prospective audiobook customer base to include the millions of loyal customers that shop on MSN. The new audiobook store offers thousands of titles from every major publishing house in the United States to the millions of users that have already embraced the Microsoft digital rights management platform as their format for legal music downloads.

According to Nielsen Net Ratings, MSN Music had 9.4 million unique visitors in September, establishing the portal's reach as one of the largest online audiences of digital entertainment buyers in the United States. Combined with MediaBay's diverse network of digital media including AudioBookClub.com and SoundsGood.com, the exclusive audio store for the "Imus in the Morning" program, the companies' co-branded audiobook store will have a tremendous collective reach extending digital audiobook content to millions of new consumers.

MSN SoundsGood customers are being offered a promotion to join a monthly subscription service that entitles members to download two audiobooks for $19.95 per month. Customers also have the option of purchasing one book at a time, via digital download or home delivered shipments of CDs or cassettes.

MSN SoundsGood AudioBooks can be listened to on Windows-based PCs, burned to CDs for listening in the automobile, or transferred to nearly one hundred different portable media players or smart phones that support secure Windows Media Audio files. MSN SoundsGood has a "devices advice" section on its web storefront that helps customers find the device that is right for them, from manufacturers such as Phillips, Creative, i-River, Dell, Samsung, and HP and other Microsoft PlaysForSure partners.

"The distribution of our audio content through MSN significantly changes the face of our company and the audiobook industry by expanding the market to millions of new audiobook fans," said Jeff Dittus, chief executive officer for MediaBay. "We are thrilled to invite the MSN audience to experience spoken word entertainment and enjoy content that speaks to anyone's taste or passion."

"As a leading provider of audiobooks and other spoken word content, MediaBay will help drive MSN's extensive digital audio offerings," said Michael Monhart, senior audio/video acquisitions manager for MSN Music. "Nearly $1 billion worth of audiobooks are sold each year in the United States, and we are hopeful that this new relationship will help MSN Music become a leading purveyor of this rapidly-growing entertainment category."

About MediaBay, Inc.

MediaBay Inc. (NASDAQ:MBAYD) is a leading digital media and publishing company specializing in spoken word and premium audio entertainment. The company maintains a library consisting of more than 75,000 hours of content, including audiobooks from best-selling authors and the history of American Radio. Some of MediaBay's digital content partners include BBC, Blackstone, Brilliance Audio, CBS Radio, Harper Collins, Hay House, Oasis, Penguin Group USA Audio, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Sound Room Publishers, Time Warner Audio and Zondervan. In addition to its popular Audio Book Club, MediaBay distributes its content through proprietary web sites SoundsGood.com and radiospirits.com as well as through partner channels including Loudeye, MSN Music, Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio. For more information on MediaBay, please visit http://www.soundsgood.com/, http://www.mediabay.com/, http://www.audiobookclub.com/, http://www.radiospirits.com/.

Contacts for MediaBay:

Michael Hope Tim Clemensen
mPRm Public Relations Rubenstein Investor Relations
323-933-3399 212-843-9337
mhope@mprm.comtclemensen@rubensteinir.com

Source: MediaBay, Inc.

CONTACT: Michael Hope of mPRm Public Relations, +1-323-933-3399,
mhope@mprm.com, or Tim Clemensen of Rubenstein Investor Relations,
+1-212-843-9337, tclemensen@rubensteinir.com, both for MediaBay, Inc.

Web site: http://www.mediabay.com/
http://www.soundsgood.com/
http://www.audiobookclub.com/
http://www.radiospirits.com/
http://music.msn.com/

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