PRESS RELEASE Wednesday 19th February 2003

ELECTRIC WORD PLC

Public Sector Reform continues to drive growth for Electric Word plc

Electric Word plc announces a jump in gross profits to £887k for 2002, a year that also saw the company deliver its first cash positive results, and the launch of another new niche newsletter.

Electric Word provides professional development information in three sectors: education management, public sector funding and sports health. It publishes 15 specialist newsletters, as well as books and reports, and produces conferences. Each of its markets has been strong but, in particular, a series of education reforms have established a new market among managers in schools and local authorities. Their need is for information and support both to develop their professional skills and to keep them fully informed in a fast-changing regulatory environment.

Public sector reform continues to drive growth for Electric Word. Today the company announces the launch of a new title "Gifted & Talented Update" - a specialist newsletter for schools to help them manage the new requirement for a strategy to provide for particularly gifted or talented pupils within the mainstream curriculum. The programme addresses the need to embrace a far wider understanding of being gifted, to spot pupils who are hiding their talents and to identify how to manage gifted underachievers in the classroom.

Trading highlights for the year ending November 2002 as follows:

Electric Word is a subscriptions-based business, with 71% of its turnover in 2002 coming from renewable subscriptions revenue. Cash flow is strong because subscribers pay in advance and future revenue is highly visible. Indeed the company can already count on exceeding last year's £1.8m of subscriptions revenue in 2003.

Subscriptions continued to drive the company's success in 2002 as the number of subscriptions increased by 35% to 20,592. But the company also achieved 30% more revenue per subscriber by increasing cross-sales of non-subscription products such as books and conferences.

Favourable market conditions, combined with the £382k free cashflow generated by its established products, gave Electric Word the confidence to step up its investment in developing new products. As a result, the second half of the year saw the launch of three new newsletters to fuel growth in future years. And more are promised in 2003.

Gross profits are up to £887K in 2002 from just over break-even in 2001. Operating Losses before goodwill and product development have been reduced by 90% to just £66K. A key driver of earnings is the larger number of established newsletters in the portfolio. Like-for-like revenues on established titles have increased by 60%. Increased efficiency has also helped margins. As the proportion of renewers has increased, marketing costs have reduced as a percentage of revenue from 68% in 2001 to just 37% in 2002.

Julian Turner, Chief Executive of Electric Word comments:

"Electric Word enjoyed a superb year in 2002. Our strategy for the business in 2001 and the first half of 2002 was to build the established titles, many of them acquired in 2000. From the second half of 2002, with the group being cash positive for over a year, the strategic priority shifted to investing surplus cash into developing new products for future growth. The launch of three new newsletters and four new conferences in the second half of 2002 proved that this was the right approach. The continuing demand for our products, particularly among managers in schools and local authorities, means that we will now significantly increase our new product development investment. We are extremely excited about the launch in March of our new title "Gifted & Talented Update" which will help schools to manage the improved provision planned for high-achieving children in academic, sporting and many other fields.

Current trading in the first quarter of 2003 has been positive in all markets and we have tested three further newsletters successfully. The first quarter has also delivered particularly strong growth in on-line subscriptions, which for the first time have formed the majority of new subscriptions in the sports health market. It's a very exciting time and we are confident that we have a lot of organic growth still to come."

Ends

Notes to Editor:

Electric Word plc was floated on AIM in March 2000.

The Company has three divisions - Sports Health, Optimus Publishing (acquired in May 2000) and Lottery Monitor (acquired in July 2000).

Website: www.electricwordplc.com

For further press information - please contact: Julian Turner, Chief Executive Tel 020 7251 3305 Jenny Basham, Capwood Communications Tel 020 7385 9411