Category: Getty Images
Getty Images, Inc. (NYSE: GYI) is the world’s largest stock photo agency, based in Seattle, Washington. Getty maintains an archive of 70 million still images and illustrations and more than 30,000 hours of stock film footage. The company was founded in 1995 by Mark Getty (current Chairman of the Board) and Jonathan Klein (current CEO) In September 1997, Getty Communications, as it was called at the time, merged with PhotoDisc, Inc. to form Getty Images. Today, the company operates several of the world’s most popular stock licensing websites including www.gettyimages.com, www.istockphoto.com, www.wireimage.com, www.punchstock.com, and www.scoopt.com. Nearly 100 percent of the company’s visual content is delivered digitally.
Key executives:
Mark Getty - Co-Founder and Chairman
Jonathan Klein - Co-Founder and CEO
Tom Oberdorf - SVP and CFO
Bruce Livingstone - SVP and CEO iStockphoto
News
Roxanne Motamedi promoted to senior executive director of entertainment for Getty Images
Getty Images, the world’s largest stock licensing company, has promoted Roxanne Motamedi to senior executive director of entertainment. In this new role, Motamedi will oversee all entertainment activities, including photography assignments, distribution and production for the Getty Images, WireImage and FilmMagic brands. She also will execute all celebrity exclusives that include weddings, baby portraits and “At Home” features.
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Getty licenses Jolie-Pitt baby pics raising more than $14 million for charity
Seattle based Getty Images has announced that it has negotiated an exclusive deal to license images from an exclusive photo shoot of the newborn twins, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline and the Jolie-Pitt family. The Images were reportedly licensed for $14 million to PEOPLE magazine in the United States and to Hello! Magazine in all other territories. In addition, the Jolie-Pitt family and Getty Images have agreed that all proceeds will be used for charitable purposes. The photos will appear in both publications on Monday, August 4, 2008.
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Getty launches JAMD Mobile application showcasing celebrity pics on Apple iPhone
Getty Images has announced that it has taken another step towards serving celebrity images direct to consumers with the release of a new mobile application for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch. The new application is an extension of the company’s JAMD.com consumer site and claims to provide a fresh new celebrity image experience “Whether you follow the cast of Gossip Girl or want the latest pics of Coldplay, JAMD Mobile encourages engagement with the images that mean the most to you,” said Bruce Livingstone, iStockphoto founder and current SVP, Consumer Division, Getty Images. “We’re delighted to use the global reach of the Apple App Store to offer our JAMD Mobile application to iPhone and iPod touch users.”
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Getty Images partners with Yahoo to monetize Flickr images
Getty Images, the worlds largest image licensing company, has announced that it has partnered with Yahoo-owned Flickr, one of the world’s largest photo sharing communities, allowing Getty to reach out to Flickr’s more than 27 million members to monetize their Flickr images. Getty plans to offer the images as part of a new Flickr branded collection of royalty free, rights ready and rights managed photographs. “This partnership is testimony to the Flickr community of photographers who have influenced the aesthetics of photography with authentic, creative and cutting-edge images which will now be available to Getty Images’ customers around the world,” said Kakul Srivastava, General Manager, Flickr.
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iStock announces Punctum Day awards and incentives for exclusive contributors
iStockphoto, the micro-stock business owned by Getty images has announced it will repeat the so-called “Punctum Day” awards on August 19. Last year, the company gave awards to contributors of various categories of content. In addition, iStock has announced several incentives for exclusive contributors; it will give 100% of revenue to its exclusive photographers whose images sell on a given date to be announced after the fact; it will allow more photographers to participate in its program to allow iStock contributors to submit to Photodisc; and it will offer personalized keywording assistance to exclusive photographers.
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Photo News Round-Up
• Photographers deserve more credit, says reader of UK paper. Click here to read an excellent letter to the editor brought to our attention by Linda Royles, Executive Director of the British Association of Picture Libraries and Archives (BAPLA.)
• Moving Up: Maria Kessler has taken the helm as President of the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA.) Christina Vaughan will serve as Vice President. Click here for more info.
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micro-music at iStock
iStockphoto has announced the launch of a micro-payment stock audio offering. This gives iStock’s 3MM member community a one-stop shopping destination for a wide variety of content types, including imagery, footage, vector art, Flash animations, and audio. Prices for the audio tracks will range form $1 to $25, depending on the complexity of the audio content.
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Getty releases most recent quarter results (for the last time?)
With the company poised to go private within this calendar quarter or early in the next, Getty Images released its results for the first three months of 2008. Unless the “merger” (as the company now refers to the transaction taking Getty private) is pushed off into the next quarter, these will be the last financial figures we see from the company. Assuming these are the last figures we’ll see, the company appears to be going out with a sigh. Currency neutral revenue grow by only 4.2% in quarter, while gross, operating and profit margins all deteriorated when compared to 1Q07.
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Photo News Round-Up
• OnRequest Images, a Seattle-based company that builds custom stock photo libraries for corporations has raised $8MM from a European investment group to be used for expansion of the business in Europe.
• Corbis hires Barry Allen as the company’s new Chief Financial Officer.
• Corbis and Getty announce new footage initiatives. Corbis adds extensive High Definition (HD) footage from Serac Adventure Films, an award-winning production company specializing in high-quality expedition films. Getty becomes the exclusive distributor of high-definition footage from American Public Television series “Art Wolfe’s Travels to the Edge.”
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CreateAds.com now offering access to iStockphoto imagery for newspaper ads
iStockphoto, has announced a partnership with CreateAds.com, a self-service ad-creation tool used by Small businesses in the UK to create newspaper ads. Users of the service will now have direct access to more than 2.6 million images from iStockphoto to suit their specific advertising needs. CreateAds.com works with publishers who produce 1,800 weekly and daily publications. Combined, these publications publish approximately 1 million ads per month, one-third of which incorporate photography. According to John Reid, Chairman of The Newspaper Society, “It’s hard to create a bad looking ad using this system”.
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iStockphoto introducing stock photography and footage subscription in May ‘08
Getty’s micropayment product, iStockphoto, the first and largest of the micro-payment sites with an image licensed every 1.4 seconds, has announced that it will be launching a subscription service to allow open access to photos, illustrations, and footage, for a period of 3, 6 or 12 months. The company is currently in private BETA testing of the new service and has declined to release information about the pricing and terms of the service except to say that Packages will start for as little as $96/month. Other companies offering similar subscription services include Shutterstock, SnapVillage and Stockxpert.
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Picscout launches PicApp to provide free copyrighted Images to bloggers
PicScout, a technology company with offices in San Francisco and Herzelia Israel best known for helping stock licensing companies monitor distribution of their content, has launched a new service called PicApp for bloggers and other online publishers to use copyrighted images for free on their websites. Rather than pay for the content with traditional licensing fees each image is accompanied by an advertisement that generates royalties to the content contributor.
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Ian Martin and Lorena Ros win Getty grants for editorial photography
Getty Images has awarded grants of $20K each to two editorial photographers for their outstanding works of social and cultural commentary through imagery. Ian Martin of Oakland, California, and Lorena Ros were selected from a pool of 139 applicants from 29 countries. The winners will also receive collaborative support from Getty to pursue their respective projects.
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Getty makes deal for $2.4 Billion
In a press-release issued today, Getty Images has announced an agreement to be bought by the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman LLC. The reported value of the deal of $2.4BB (or $34.00 per share) exceeds by 60% the originally estimated selling price of $1.5BB quoted by the New York Times when Getty first made public its intention to seek "strategic alternatives." According to the release, Getty’s Board of Directors has agreed to the deal and will recommend its approval to shareholders. The company expects to complete the transaction during the second quarter of 2008.
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Getty adds film scores from Lionsgate to its music archives
Getty Images continues to pursue avenues of growth apart from its principal business activity of licensing still photography. On the audio content licensing front, Getty has just signed a deal with the independent film production company, Lionsgate, whose most recent feature film ‘3:10 to Yuma,’ received an Oscar nomination for its musical score. The deal includes scores from other well-known Lionsgate films ‘Monster’s Ball’ and ‘Crash’ as well as music from the company’s television productions.
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Getty to represent Bob Thomas Sports Photography and Popperfoto
Getty Images, London, has announced the addition to its offerings of the historical image archive Popperfoto which includes the Bob Thomas Sports Photography collection. Bob Thomas, himself, owns Popperfoto which he has, up to now, marketed through various distribution partners world-wide from their offices in a small village outside of London.
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Getty Images releases second edition of MAP Report covering visual trends for 2008
Getty Images, The world’s largest stock licensing company has released the second edition of the MAP Report (what Makes A Picture). The Map report, created by Getty Images global creative research team, provides insight into visual trends that will change the look of mass-communication. This year´s report is entitled AspEn, with a strong focus on environmental consciousness, or ideals of “aspirational environmentalism” as it relates to marketers who are attempting to “out-green” each other. The report states that in 2008 brands will have to be more aware of careless uninspiring use of environmental visual clichés. The report is available for purchase as an English-language PDF for (US $750, £400).
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Getty releases 4Q07 results Revenue Up, Profit Down
On the company’s 4Q earnings call, CEO Jonathan Klein focused on the sequential quarterly improvements in the company’s performance. From the 3rd quarter to the 4th quarter, revenue has grown 4% in every segment of the business. He acknowledged that year over year comparisons were less flattering to the company (1% on a currency neutral basis,) but, he argued, the improvements from the 3rd to the 4th quarters of 2007 prove the company’s efforts to right the ship – stabilize the creative stills business and grow other parts of the company – are paying off.
Editorials
Editorial: Pure speculation on the sale of Getty Images
Since the news broke earlier this week about Getty hiring Goldman Sachs to explore “strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value,” many colleagues and friends in the industry have asked what it all means. In response, I offer the following with the caveat that while the comments all make perfect sense (to me, at least,) much of what follows is pure speculation:
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Getty Images confirms that it is exploring strategic alternatives
In response to rumors circulating the industry including an article published by the New York Times, Getty Images has issued a press release confirming that “its Board of Directors is exploring strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value”. And the company “has retained Goldman, Sachs & Co. as its financial advisor and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP as its legal advisor in connection with its evaluation of such alternatives”.
