Acquisition

BT Group PLC
7 March 2002



              BTopenworld Purchases Europe's Number One Music Site

           Acquisition of the dotmusic business provides BTopenworld

                  with launch pad to expand its Music Services

London - March 6, 2002

BTopenworld has today announced that it has agreed to purchase Europe's most
popular music site, dotmusic.com from United Business Media. The deal highlights
BTopenworld's commitment to creating the best destination site for music in the
UK and follows the successful launch of its classical music subscription
service, BTopenworld Classical in January 2002.

Following last week's across the board price reductions and the launch of
BTopenworld's self-install broadband access product Plug & Go, this latest move
highlights BTopenworld's commitment to play its part in providing unrivalled
entertainment content via the broadband and narrowband platforms. Combined with
its earlier acquisition of UK's number one games site, Games Domain, in November
2001, the deal makes BTopenworld the UK market leader in online music and games
services.

BTopenworld's Music division will take management of dotmusic operations,
including staff and ownership of the relevant domain name www.dotmusic.com, for
a purchase price of under £1,000,000 (significantly below the class 3 ratio
test). dotmusic.com will continue as a stand-alone website and will be enhanced
with broadband content and services.

The deal follows recent developments in BTopenworld's music services including
an ongoing trial of a mass market music subscription service with OD2, the
development of a customised BTopenworld media player with Microsoft and the
launch of its classical music download subscription service, BTopenworld
Classical.

Founded in 1995, dotmusic is already Europe's most popular music site with 1.7
million unique users a month and 16 million page impressions a month (both
February 2002). The site features many thousands of pages of content across
popular music genres including news, reviews, charts, webcasts, a gig guide and
more than 200 video interviews. In addition there is a comprehensive shop where
users can buy CDs, DVDs, videos, tickets and ring tones and a community section
with webchats, forums and an extensive array of email newsletters.

Announcing the deal, BTopenworld's CEO Alison Ritchie said: "Adding dotmusic's
exclusive content, extensive user base and strong online music brand name to our
already successful music site will ensure we continue to be a leading player in
online music service provision. Last week BTopenworld announced major price cuts
for our broadband services and with the launch of our easy to use self install
product Plug & Go, this deal reiterates our intention to drive and innovate
cutting edge content solutions for both the narrowband and broadband platforms."

Prior to the acquisition dotmusic and BTopenworld had an association that saw
dotmusic providing its music news for the BTopenworld Music site.

Mark O'Donoghue, previously dotmusic's managing director and now responsible for
all of United Business Media's music and entertainment titles in the UK said
"This is great news for the future of dotmusic and its staff, all of whom will
transfer. We brought dotmusic back in-house at the Music Group to enhance it as
a site and to develop musicweek.com alongside it. This has progressed very well
towards a full launch in the near future. Successfully selling a dotcom in the
current environment might seem unlikely, but dotmusic has built up a great
franchise with 1.7 million consumers and music fans. We are now 100% focused on
delivering business information to the UK and international music industry."

The deal is due to be completed on April 2, 2002.

                                   ***Ends***

For further information please contact

Justin Crosby or Chris Wright

Kazoo Communications Tel [phone] email justin/[e-mail]

Notes for Editors

About BTopenworld

BTopenworld, BT plc's mass-marketing Internet division, is one of the UK's
leading Internet service providers delivering broadband and narrowband services
to more than 1.6 million business and consumer customers in the UK through
www.btopenworld.com. The company offers a wide range of Internet access packages
and payment options to satisfy the changing needs of consumer and business
customers. For narrowband customers, these range across Pay-as-you-go,
BTopenworld for BT surf packages offering unmetered Internet access evenings and
weekends, BTopenworld Anytime offering access to the Internet available 24/7 and
BTopenworld Connect Anytime, a 24/7 package designed specifically for business
customers.

BTopenworld's broadband products cover a choice of download speeds, from 500kbps
to up to 2Mbps, single or multi-user set-ups for PC or Mac, and static or
dynamic IP addresses. BTopenworld also offers many other Internet services to
support customer's online experience, including email services, SpeechMail
(charged at NationalCall rates), Cyberpatrol, a WAP portal and more. The company
also provides virtual ISP services to a network of corporate partners who reach
an additional 1.1 million customers. Alison Ritchie is the chief executive
officer of BTopenworld .

About Dotmusic

Launched in August 1995, dotmusic (www.dotmusic.com) is the UK's and Europe's
most popular music web site with 1.7 million unique users and 16 million page
impressions a month (ABCe audited February 2002).

dotmusic offers up-to-date news and reviews on major artists, with sound clips,
exclusive events and interviews. Music fans can surf the comprehensive artist
information and buy CDs, gig tickets and other music goods.

dotmusic was the first UK music site to be launched by a traditional music
magazine publisher. Originally targeted at Music Week's traditional music
industry audience, in December 1996 the site expanded and repositioned itself to
embrace its growing consumer audience, providing a new 'behind the scenes' angle
on music and capitalising on Music Week's exclusive access to music information.

dotmusic is now the most comprehensive UK music service on the Internet. Rather
than focusing on one genre of music, dotmusic covers a broad range of acts from
Will Young to the Chemical Brothers to Marilyn Manson, all under the strap line
of "What's Your Sound".



                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange