For immediate release OMNI.1 Remembers a 60-year Old Tragedy TORONTO, ONTARIO - FEBRUARY 19TH, 2004 - OMNI Television is proud to announce another world premiere! Fallen Heroes (Eroi Caduti) will air in Italian on OMNI.1, Saturday, February 28th, 2004 at 9pm. This half-hour independently produced documentary recalls how on November 24, 1943, in the midst of WWII, a Canadian Royal Air Force Wellington airplane with six crew members, crashed into the Apennine Mountains in northern Italy, near the town of Bardi, in the Province of Parma. Although the townspeople identified the plane as Canadian, the identities of the airmen were not discovered until 2003. Eroi Caduti (Fallen Heroes) looks at the impact of the crash on the small community of Bardi and how six decades later, two Ottawa families, one originally from Bardi, the other, the next of kin of one of the fallen airmen, came together on Parliament Hill to remember. Adriano Chiappa witnessed the crash as a young man and for decades wanted to find the names of the crew so that he could pay tribute to these Canadian airmen. "It took some time to put the pieces together but we were able to find the names of the fallen Wellington crew, including Canadians Colin Wheatly and Hedley Fitch II," said Adriano Chiappa. "It was amazing to find out that Leslie Fitch, brother of the pilot who died on that plane, lived a few blocks from where we first settled in Ottawa when we came to Canada. And it was very moving to meet him and the son of the pilot after all that time." Hedley Fitch III was only an infant when his father had died in the War. He was touched to learn, in 2003, that the residents of Bardi had given his father and his crew members, a dignified burial. In May 2003, the community of Bardi came together, with Canadians, including students from the Canadian Battle of Normandy Foundation to honour the fallen airmen at a special ceremony. "Making this documentary made me realize that even in the midst of chaos and war, there is humanity and compassion. It also opened up my eyes to the often forgotten sacrifices that Canadians made in WWII in Italy," said Anna Chiappa, who co-produced the documentary with James Blondeau of Dunrobin Castle. Entertainment. Eroi Caduti is just one of the many documentaries which will to be shown on OMNI Television this year all of which have been 100% funded by the OMNI Television Independent Producers Initiative. The $32.5 million fund is a seven-year commitment created and made available for the independent production of Canadian third language/ethnocultural programming. The fund is not only dedicated to helping Canadian independent producers tell their stories in their language of comfort, but also to make sure that these stories are accessible to other ethnocultural communities through re-versioning in different languages including English. "OMNI television is proud to be the industry’s first, and only, major source of funding for the independent production of non-official language programming," says Malcolm Dunlop, Vice President, Programming and Marketing for Rogers Media Television. The English version of Fallen Heroes will air on OMNI Television in the fall of 2004. Further details, including scheduling information as it becomes available, are posted at www.omnitv.ca. Rogers Media Inc., a division of Rogers Communications Inc., (TSX: RCI.A and RCI.B; NYSE: RG) operates Rogers Broadcasting and Rogers Publishing. Rogers Broadcasting has 43 AM and FM radio stations across Canada. Television properties include Toronto multicultural television broadcaster CFMT, televised and electronic shopping service, the Shopping Channel, regional sports channel, Rogers Sportsnet and the management of three digital television services. Rogers Publishing produces many well-known consumer magazines such as Maclean’s, Chatelaine, Flare, L’actualité, Canadian Business and is the leading publisher of a number of trade publications. All media properties are integrated with their own popular web sites. - 30 -