The Daily News will become the Real Cities partner in the New York City market. As the largest circulation paper in New York's five boroughs, The Daily News Web site with its popular local news, features and sports coverage boasts more than 12 million page views each month.

"With the addition of this great newspaper to our network, Real Cities extends its reach into the largest media market in the nation," said Dan Finnigan, president of KnightRidder.com. "Now we are serving 12 of the top 26 markets, continuing to bring great resources to our business and consumer users.

"We are pleased to be joining the Real Cities network," said Marie DeParis, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Planning at the New York Daily News. "We have more than 900,000 unique visitors a month to our Web site, and they will benefit from the national partnerships and resources Real Cities brings. In turn, the easy access to our site, through the Real Cities Network enhances every one of the partner sites with our coverage of the largest media market in the nation."

By joining the Network, www.nydailynews.com will carry and build out the Network's local Web directory, as well as participate in national advertising and distribution deals. Real Cities has landed strategic content distribution opportunities through online and wireless partners. The Yahoo! local news channel features headlines from Real Cities affiliates. Real Cities is also one of the few in-box providers of local headlines for the "News Where You Are" channel in the Palm VII devices. These flagship distribution deals extend the Real Cities' local content nationwide.

With the addition of the New York market, the Real Cities Network strengthens its position as the "Go Local" channel on the Internet, offering both consumers and businesses the best of local news, information and shopping.

About Real Cities:

Real Cities consists of a unique partnership network that brings together the best strengths of leading U.S. media and Internet companies including KnightRidder.com, A. H. Belo Corporation, E.W. Scripps Co., Macromedia, Inc., and Blade Communications. The network allows media organizations to leverage their strong local content in a national network that bring to consumers news, sports, event happenings and community connections from locally run information sources that are trusted to be the heart and soul of their locale. Among Real Cities' member Web sites are BayArea.com, Cincinow.com, DFW.com, Indy.com, KansasCity.com, Kentucky.com, Miami.com, Philly.com, PittsburghFirst.com, , PhoenixAZ.com, Charlotte.com, TwinCities.com and NorthJersey.com.

KnightRidder.com, a leader in local information and services on the Web and founder of the Real Cities network is headquartered in San Jose, California. KnightRidder.com develops and manages the Internet properties of Knight Ridder (NYSE:KRI), the nation's second largest newspaper publisher. KnightRidder.com is a separate Internet subsidiary.

The Daily News is the sixth largest newspaper in America and the best-selling paper in both New York City and New York state.

Press contacts:

Cynthia Mallen Funnell, Knight Ridder.com, (408) 938-6076, cfunnell@realcities.com.

Maya Esparza, PRx Inc. for KnightRidder.com, (408) 287-1700, maya_esparza@prxinc.com.