As part of the $30 annual fee, benefits to Salon Premium subscribers at launch include:

* Access to Premium-only content, specifically:
-- "Bushed!": Salon's opinionated daily roundup of the exploits and mishaps of President George W. Bush and his administration
-- A special expanded Friday edition of Amy Reiter's popular "Nothing Personal" column
-- Salon's sassy synopses of "Chains of Love" and other "reality TV" shows
-- Premium-only galleries of erotic art and photography in Salon Sex

* The option to view new Salon content without exposure to most banner and pop-up ads.

* An MP3 download of the audio book, "The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald." A $35 retail value, the audio book is narrated by actors Parker Posey, Blythe Danner, Eric Stoltz, Peter Gallagher, Campbell Scott, Robert Sean Leonard and others.

* Also, subscribers to Salon's legendary paid online community, The WELL, will receive one month of free service to The WELL if they subscribe to Salon Premium.

After its debut, Salon Premium will continue to be enhanced with new features, including additional content and a new download feature enabling users to read Salon when not connected to the Internet and to conveniently print out multiple articles for offline reading.

Says Michael O'Donnell, CEO and president of Salon.com, "We're very excited about the launch of Salon Premium. It closes the loop in our mission to provide our readers with two compelling options with which to enjoy Salon -- on a free basis with prominent advertising, or a largely 'ad-free' version of Salon with an annual subscription. The Internet is all about flexibility and we're delighted to provide these options to both our advertisers and our readers."

About Salon

Founded in 1995, Salon.com is a leading Internet media company that produces 10 award-winning, original content sites and hosts two communities -- Table Talk and The WELL. In May 2000, Salon acquired MP3Lit.com, a pioneering Web company offering quality spoken-word and audio literature recordings. In October 2000, Salon.com launched Salon Audio, a site offering 24-hour music programming, daily downloads and streaming audio from Salon's favorite columnists, as well as hundreds of downloadable versions of short stories, poems and interviews in MP3 and Real Audio formats. Over 530 companies have advertised on Salon.com including IBM, Lexus, Microsoft, EDS, Hewlett-Packard, Mastercard, AskJeeves, Virgin Megastore Online, Kimberly Clark, and Intel. In December 1999, Salon.com announced a content and equity agreement with Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc., a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp. and NBC. Strategic wireless distribution partners include AvantGo, Omnisky, Palm.net and Skytel.