Clarity Partners – Communications, Media and Business Services Private Equity Investors

CRESCENT ENTERTAINMENT COMPLETES $115 MILLION TRANSACTION WITH VILLAGE ROADSHOW LIMITED

October 21, 2005 –

Crescent Entertainment, an investment group led by Act III Communications, Lambert Television, and Clarity Partners, has completed a USD$115 million loan/option agreement with Melbourne, Australia based Village Roadshow Limited. (VRL). As part of the transaction, Crescent received options to acquire a 50% interest in the Village Roadshow Pictures Group (VRPG), part of VRL’s production division and one of the most successful independent co-financing groups in the feature film business.

Crescent partners Hal Gaba and Michael Lambert will share the office of Chairman of the Village Roadshow Pictures Group, along with VRL’s Melbourne-based Graham Burke. Along with plans to increase the number of films VRPG co-produces and finances on an annual basis, Crescent and Village Roadshow will work together to pursue acquisition opportunities in filmed entertainment and other media.

The Village Roadshow Pictures Group is a global entertainment group that develops, produces, finances, and exploits feature-length motion pictures in partnership with major US motion picture studios.

In particular, VRPG has had a consistently profitable track record as a co-production and co-financing partner of Warner Bros. Pictures. Included in the VRPG library of over 40 previously released films are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Matrix trilogy, Oceans 11 and Oceans 12, Analyze This, Mystic River, Constantine, and Miss Congeniality.

VRPG has operations in Los Angeles, Australia, the British Virgin Islands, and other international territories with a team of industry professionals with extensive experience in developing, producing, financing, acquiring, and distributing motion pictures.

Former WB president of production, Bruce Berman, who has headed VRPG’s Los Angeles operations since 1998, will continue as Chairman and CEO of Village Roadshow Pictures Entertainment.

Norman Lear of Act III Communications said, “VRPG has a tremendous track record of global box-office success and the business model of the group is as solid as any in the entertainment industry. We have an opportunity to build upon this success in other areas of media and entertainment.”

Graham Burke, CEO of Village Roadshow Limited said, "We selected Hal, Michael and Norman to be our partners because of their integrity and vision to grow the business. Combined with our principal partner Warner Bros I see no limit on future achievement and success together."

About Village Roadshow Limited
Village Roadshow Limited, an Australian public company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, is a vertically integrated global entertainment company with operations in cinema exhibition, theme parks, radio broadcasting, distribution and film production.

Along with its interest in VRPG, VRL is one of the biggest international cinema operators, the leading operator of theme parks in Australia, Australia's leading radio broadcaster and a market leader in film, home video and television distribution in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Greece.

About Act III
Act III, co-owned by Norman Lear and Hal Gaba, is a media investment firm with interests in recorded music and music publishing and international broadcasting. Its Concord Records unit recently acquired privately owned Fantasy Records and has since become the largest independently owned jazz label in the country. In a partnership with Starbucks, the label’s Genius Loves Company won Album of the Year, along with numerous other awards, at this year’s Grammy ceremony. Moscow-based TV3 Russia is among that country’s largest independent broadcasters.

About Lambert Entertainment
Lambert Entertainment is engaged in broadcasting, technology, programming and distribution. Its U.S. television station group, delivered amongst the industry’s highest investor returns through properties in Nashville, Las Vegas, Chattanooga, Boise, Palm Springs, Burlington, and Yuma. Its iBlast partnership with Tribune, Gannett, Washington Post, Cox, Scripps, McGraw-Hill and New York Times was recently sold to Movie Gallery. Lambert is the founding and managing member of Partner Stations Network, which has partnered with Paramount, CBS-Eyemark, Lions Gate, and others to co-produce and distribute first-run drama and reality series. Michael Lambert was previously president of Twentieth Century Fox Television.

About Clarity Partners
Clarity Partners is a Los Angeles-based private equity firm with over $800 million in committed capital focused exclusively on investments in media, communications, and business services. All of the senior members of the Clarity team have been successful investors in the media and communications industries over long investment careers and have had diverse and accomplished senior level operating and financing experience. Other current Clarity investments in media companies include Vue Entertainment (a leading chain of movie theaters in the U.K. and Ireland), Oxygen Media (a U.S. cable television programming network reaching over 55 million subscribers), ImpreMedia (the leading independent group of U.S. Spanish-language newspapers), and Naylor Publications (a business-to-business advertising and communications company). www.claritypartners.net

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