StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

QuickLinks For 2008-10-26

• Hard Times for Stock Continue, Corbis to Cut Royalty Rate:
  Corbis CEO Gary Shenk said the company faces “a moment of disruptive change in the image market.”
  “Overall, we expect the image licensing market to shrink in the coming years". He showed a slide forecasting that the total stock image licensing business will fall from $2.3 billion dollars in 2007 to $2.2 billion in 2011. The traditional stock licensing that makes up most of the industry will shrink at an even faster rate.
  PDN/Daryl Lang.

Jupiterimages to be sold to Getty Images for $96 million

So where had Alan been?

In Spring 2007 it sounded like a $450 million deal (the New York Post story), now it comes down to $96 million which will "allow Jupitermedia to pay off all of its bank debt".

Getty Images´ press release, followed by Jupitermedia´s press release for Jupiterimages.

More financial details here in the last two paragraphs of this article at 24/7 Wall St.

Pino Granata: The Stock photo market crash

Barack Obama and John McCain have Joe the plumber from Ohio. We have, let´s call him, John Smith, a friend of mine who used to live between New York City and Los Angeles.

I saw him again after a few years in LA during my last trip. He told me: I have to reinvent my life which wasn´t bad.

Until a few years ago, shooting stock, I used to make a couple of thousands with one of the big three and another couple of thousands with an english photo agency.

I also used to have assignments for 3 or 4 thousands and my life wasn´t that bad.

QuickLinks For 2008-10-17

• 2008 Stock photo market crash - So where do we stand today?:
  I wouldn´t predict anyone re-inventing the stock photo industry any time soon.
  The biggest uncertainty right now is how deep the current recession will be (lets call it what it is). It could potentially squeeze otherwise well run companies out of business, period, no matter what the state of the stock photo business itself is.
  Phil Nealey/unsharpmasked.
  Related: 2008 Stock Photo Market Crash? (May 10, 2008)

Pino Granata: We have reached the bottom

Getty has changed hands and nobody knows what are the plans of the new owners to make the company more profitable.

Jupiter has reached the new low ($1.17), losing in one day 30% of its value.

A21 value is between 1 to 3 pennies.

But worse than everything is that all the photo agencies instead of promoting their pictures pointing on the quality, they promise low prices.

They should say: we have pictures that if you use them to promote your products you will increase your sales by 50%. What has happened in the magazines or newspapers for years is that when the editors get free publicity material they don´t even look at it and they throw it in the garbage.

Pino Granata: Let´s try to do the right things

 

The stock photography at all is doing very badly.

Still we have to analyze what will be the impact on the industry of the sale of Getty Images to Hellman & Friedman which is the most important event in years. This is a fact that can´t be denied.

Every day there are some more bad news. Now we get to know that Masterfile will fire some employees and other agencies will lower some prices.

But these things now happen almost every day. To lay off employees and to lower prices will not solve the problem of this industry and it will make things even more worse and this is another fact.

20 years ago I was dealing with Tony Stone to represent his agency in Italy.

Getty Images For Sale - Update

Bridget Russel, Director, Corporate Communications, Getty Images (Seattle), today:

"Regarding the New York Times article, as a publicly traded company, we cannot comment on rumor and speculation".

Similar Getty Images´ Alison Crombie (London) over at Photo Archive News:

"We cannot comment on rumour or speculation".

Getty Images For Sale - Have A Nice Monday

 

An old rumor finally becomes reality: only ten days before the next conference call on January 31st, the New York Times reports today "Getty Images Up for Sale, Could Fetch $1.5 Billion": "Final bids are due by the end of the month".

There will be a lot of noise later about the company´s evaluation, given that "for the full year 2007, Getty Images expects revenue of approximately $850 million, this implies revenue of approximately $210 million for the fourth quarter of 2007", and a gloomy future for this industry in general.

Ceterum Censeo: Pino Granata´s We are not butchers

On his blog Paul Melcher says that the photo industry never has been so healthy.

In the past we never have had stock photo agencies with a turnover of $800 million a year.

In these days photo agencies are sold and bought for $200 million or more. There is a lot of money in the photo industry and that is true.

Letters from Italy with Pino Granata´s Ceterum censeo: The Stars Look Down

 

What is happening right now in our editorial and stock photo industry is unbelievable.

Getty Images is buying everything and now anybody can observe that we are under a monopoly regime.

What we do in these days is gossip. We talk of Getty Images, Corbis, acquisitions, stock market trends, but we dont talk about photographers and photography anymore.