McGraw-Hill enters consumer CD-ROM market with new interactive division

McGraw-Hill Home Interactive to publish original CD-ROMs for children

NEW YORK December 5, 1995: The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP) today announced the publishing plans for its new McGraw-Hill Home Interactive division (MHHI) that will create original multimedia software for the home. The division will ship its first line of entertaining educational titles, targeted to children ages 8 to 14, for the 1996 holiday season.

"Our focus is to create original, entertaining interactive products for children using our established educational underpinnings," said Douglas Kubach, McGraw-Hill Educational and Professional Publishing Senior Vice President of Technology and Multimedia. "Our titles will be engaging and fun and developed especially to take advantage of interactive media. Parents will be comfortable with our proven learning value and decades of educational expertise."

MHHI's debut line of titles will cover subjects such as math, social studies and science featuring immersive environments, strong characters and narratives. Designed specifically for children and their parents at home, the titles will take a different approach than McGraw-Hill's school products. "The original learning environments we are creating will be fun for kids, but based on tested instructional design," he added.

According to Kubach, MHHI has assembled a top-notch team with proven experience developing award-winning consumer software at companies such as LucasArts, Activision, Broderbund and MECC. "The people we've brought together understand how to combine multimedia technology and content to engage a child in an educational experience that encourages decision making, provides constant feedback and allows for self-paced exploration," Kubach said.

McGraw-Hill Home Interactive, based in Redwood City, California, is dedicated to providing children with engaging and immersive interactive entertainment with proven learning value. The McGraw-Hill Companies, founded in 1888, is a leading information services organization serving worldwide markets in education, business, industry, the professions and government. Revenues in 1994 exceeded $2.7 billion.

Copyright ©1996 McGraw-Hill Home Interactive, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. All product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of McGraw-Hill Home Interactive.