Trading Update

NewMedia SPARK PLC
12 April 2006

For Immediate Release                                              12 April 2006

                               NewMedia SPARK plc
                           ('SPARK' or the 'Company)

                                 Trading update

NewMedia SPARK plc, the Venture Capital investor in early stage digital media
and technology companies would like to update shareholders on trading and give
an overview of portfolio activity ahead of going into its close period.

                                                                                
Quarterly Review

During the quarter ending 31 March 2006 the Company has seen its portfolio
developing as forecast at the interim announcement in December with values
continuing to rise for maturing parts of the portfolio.

Key highlights include:

   •New £2m investment in Skinkers
   •Further investment into Aspex
   •Strategic review of options for Mergermarket commenced
   •Good flow and quality of new investment opportunities
   •Purchase of 22,115,949 of the Company's own shares at an average price of
    12.4p, representing an 11.4% discount to last reported net assets of 14p

SPARK will be issuing a preliminary announcement for its full year results to
March 2006 in June.


Portfolio highlights:


SKINKERS


Company

A new addition to the SPARK portfolio, Skinkers is a developer and provider of
desktop based push communication services to the media, marketing and corporate
sectors. The core proposition of the Company is to offer its clients a dedicated
channel that can be used to push important notifications directly to the desktop
of their customers, partners or employees as an alternative to the email
channel.


Clients

Based in London, the Company started trading in 2002 and has since sold its
service to over 145 clients in the UK, US, Europe and Asia. Its clients include
BSkyB, Norwich Union, BBC, Cisco Systems, Nortel, London Stock Exchange,
Financial Times, Halifax Bank of Scotland, Turner CNN, Clear Channel, Warner
Bros and several other blue-chip organisations.


Business development

Skinkers will use the £2m investment to promote its existing services (news
alerts, marketing alerts and corporate notifications), finalise the development
of its mobile offering and increase its international sales capabilities. Since
SPARK's investment in February, the company has extended its relationship with
the BBC and the FT and signed a number of new clients including Clearchannel in
the US. They have also been included in Gartner's 'CRM Marketing and Analytics'
report as one of the top CRM vendors worldwide.


MERGERMARKET


Trading ahead of Budget


The Mergermarket Group continues to perform strongly achieving sales well ahead
of budget, very high renewal values for its core products - in some areas in
excess of 100% - and operating profit also ahead of budget.


New markets and products


The company has launched a number of its core products in Asia with some
encouraging early sales wins for what represents an entirely new market for its
products. The company now has more than 160 journalists in 31 locations
worldwide, including recent additions in Shanghai and Hong Kong. In addition,
The Mergermarket Group has launched its unique new product aimed at the wealth
management business. Given the fragmented nature of this market, the Group is
optimistic about being able to build its subscriber base quickly.


Strategic review well underway


Further to our statement in January, Hawkpoint Partners has been retained to
undertake a strategic review of The Mergermarket Group. Following public
disclosure of this process, Hawkpoint Partners has received a large number of
indications of interest in the Group. A further announcement on this process
will be made in due course, when appropriate.


ASPEX SEMICONDUCTOR


New business wins and new products launched

Aspex semiconductor has had its print accelerator board for a major printer
company accepted and will be shipping boards later this year. In addition, it
has successfully completed the design and build of encoding boards capable of
real-time High Definition encoding using MPEG 2 for launch at the National Audio
and Broadcast show (NAB) in Las Vegas later this month. These boards will be
addressing the growing demand for Digital Video encoding solutions to meet the
growth of the market for High Definition in the professional imaging market. An
initial volume order for this board has already been received from Sorenson. The
H264 version will be ready before the end of the year.


KOBALT MUSIC GROUP


Significant new business wins

Kobalt Music Group won the contract to administer the rights (ex North America)
purchased by Evergreen copyrights, a fund sponsored by Lehman Brothers. This is
a breakthrough for Kobalt as it represents their first win from amongst the
growing community of private equity backed vehicles seeking to build up
substantial catalogues via acquisition. This will add more than 15,000 songs to
Kobalt's existing roster of 60,000 administration contracts including works by
Teddy Riley, J.J. Cale, Nick Drake, Cubanismo. As part of the agreement, Kobalt
will also represent all of EverGreen Copyrights' works for synchronisation in
film, TV, and advertising.


Business momentum

From a standing start, Kobalt has made it into the league tables of Europe's top
10 publishers within 5 years and is now poised to take advantage of substantial
change in the sector, including those taking place in the US domestic market.
Having being incubated from inception inside SPARK, it now operates from new
offices, is cash flow positive and is building an enviable reputation.


DX3


Digital music gains traction

DX3 has seen substantial growth in the market for music content delivered
digitally to PC's and mobiles. In the final week of March 2006, the song 'Crazy'
by Gnarls Barkley made history by becoming the first single ever to make the UK
number one on the basis of sales of digital versions only. In the first quarter
of this year, 7% of all chart music was downloaded via a mobile service
according to the Official Charts Company with Deloittes predicting that by the
end of 2006, 20% of all music sales will be made digitally.


Customer wins

DX3 is increasingly at the forefront of this revolution in the UK being behind
the launch of the UK's first 'non-Operator' full track to mobile service
launched by Monstermob on 28 March (www.mobmusic.com). In recent months, DX3 has
also begun to power services by Virgin Mobile, EMAP, Tesco's and is well placed
to follow the growth in the sector.


IMIMOBILE


IMImobile has continued to show strong revenue growth over the last quarter,
signing deals with Starcomms in Nigeria, QTel in Qatar and Tigo in El Salvador
to launch mobile value added services.


The company has generated further interest in its services and products from a
presence at the 3GSM conferences in Barcelona and India, and from the Contenido
Movil Americas conference in Miami. Its pipeline of potential customers includes
companies from India, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and the Carribbean.
IMImobile now employs 200 people around the world.


SPUTZ


Sputz recently announced the acquisition of Hurricane, the production company
behind many of Germany's leading TV formats. This transforms Sputz from being a
cash shell into a fully operational business. The expectation is that this
should generate greater interest in the company and enable SPARK to reduce its
holding in this otherwise illiquid stock.


For further information, please contact :

NewMedia SPARK                                                      020 78517777
Tom Teichman, Chairman

Buchanan Communications                                             020 74665000
Isabel Podda



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