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Shareholder/Bondholder Approvals Pave Way For Bright Station Birth And £27.8 Million ($44.0 Million) New Equity Injection

LONDON - April 27, 2000 - The formation of Bright Station plc (http://www.brightstation.com), a new technology-driven Company focused on Web Solutions, eCommerce and nurturing Internet start-ups, moved a major step closer to completion as shareholders and bondholders of The Dialog Corporation plc (NASDAQ:DIAL, LSE:DLG) today approved the previously announced sale, for $275 million, of Dialog's Information Services Division (ISD) to The Thomson Corporation (TSE:TOC) and approved changing the Company's name to Bright Station plc. The sale proceeds will be used to repay all existing senior and high-yield debt and, combined with £27.8 million ($44.0 million) in new equity investment from Thomson Corporation and JIYU Holdings, will place Bright Station plc on a sound financial footing. As a result of these investments, Thomson Corporation and JIYU Holdings will hold 5.4% and 4.1% respectively of the enlarged issued share capital.

As of 4 May 2000, The Dialog Corporation will formally change its name to Bright Station plc, and its stock symbols will change to BSN on the London Stock Exchange and to BSTN on NASDAQ. The Dialog Corporation name will be retained by the ISD as a business unit within Thomson.

Dialog/Bright Station's Chief Executive, Dan Wagner, stated

'We are very pleased with the outcome of today's Dialog shareholder and bondholder votes which overwhelmingly approved the sale of the ISD to Thomson in a transaction that directly meets each party's strategic business goals: The ISD provides an ideal fit with Thomson's already substantial online information assets, while the capital provided by the ISD sale and strategic equity investments by Thomson and JIYU Holdings will free the new Bright Station to focus our full management and capital resources in supporting the growth of our technology-led businesses. We are very pleased to develop this relationship with Thomson and welcome them and JIYU as major strategic investors in Bright Station.

'The entire Bright Station team is ready to seize the opportunities ahead. We intend to maintain an entrepreneurial focus and have assembled what we believe are the essential ingredients for success - attractive technologies, experienced and motivated management and sufficient capital to fund our growth.'

Following completion of the deal, Bright Station will be comprised of three divisions:

• Web Solutions (WSD) - focused on the proprietary InfoSort content indexing technology, Muscat natural language search technology, WebTop/WebCheck concept-based search tool and the Knowledge Management suite of solutions. Bright Station's Knowledge Management business is officially being re-named SmartLogiK.
• ECommerce (ECD) - containing the B2B OfficeShopper Internet procurement business, and the Sparza B2B eCommerce licensing technologies.
• Internet Ventures (IVD) - the third and newest division, IVD is being launched in conjunction with the official formation of Bright Station. IVD will nurture, and invest in, promising high technology and Internet start-up businesses leveraging the company's technology assets and expertise.

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