Random Thoughts 133

Posted on 3/23/2007 by Jim Pickerell | Printable Version | Comments (0)

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RANDOM THOUGHTS 133


March 23, 2007



Getty Launches 'Orchard' An Assignment Photography Division

Getty Images, Inc. has launched Orchard, a boutique assignment photography agency that delivers customized, high quality representation with unparalleled efficiency. Customers can choose from two distinct services: Orchard Artist Representation, which offers elite, award-winning photographers for commission based on their style, approach and specialty; and Orchard Global Assignment, which facilitates the commission of talent for projects driven by geographical location.

The expansion of Getty Images' photo assignment business is a result of growing customer demand for streamlined customization. Since 2004, the company's volume in the assignment category has more than doubled.

"Whether a project requires the expert focus of our world-renowned represented talent or the agility of our global network of photographers, Orchard gives customers a range of options no other agency can match," said Matthew Goodrich, director of Marketing and Strategy for Orchard.

Orchard Artist Representatives work closely with an elite roster of emerging and established talent across the globe. Based in New York, London, Munich and Paris, these reps manage all aspects of production, including timelines, budgets, casting and travel logistics, while ensuring the visions and expectations of the photographer and the customer are in alignment throughout the process.



Prominent talent repped through Orchard Artist Representation includes Lorenzo Agius, Polly Borland, Martha Camarillo, Patrick Curtet, Trevor Ray Hart, Mitch Jenkins, Simon Ladefoged, Stuart O' Sullivan, Per-Anders Pettersson, Sabine Pigalle, Shaul Schwarz, Brent Stirton, Tom Stoddart and David Turnley. A complete roster of leading photographers can be found at
http://orchardrepresents.com/ .

The Orchard Global Assignment service caters to multiple city photo shoots, event coverage, corporate and environmental portraits and other location-driven needs. Customers can choose from hundreds of photographers worldwide, along with a wide range of top-tier crews, studios and local experts. Supported by the company's quality standards and end-to-end production services, the team is able to facilitate assignments virtually anywhere in the world.

To learn more about Orchard Artist Representation and Global Assignment services, visit http://orchardrepresents.com/ .

Advertising Growth

According to TNS Media Intelligence in the five years from 2002 to 2006, advertising in "measured media" in the U.S. increased 23.7% from $121 billion to almost $150 billion. This was just slightly ahead of the total economy which expanded 23.1%.

Internet advertising was the real winner rising from 6% of the total in 2002-2003 to 12.4% in 2006, or $18.6 billion or the total. Google was responsible for $10.6 billion of this revenue. Advertising for television magazines, newspapers and radio were in a slight decline of relative market share, but all but newspapers showed some growth in revenue.
Newspapers declined in revenue generated and share of market.

Warren Buffet Condemns Newspaper Business As Investment

Warren Buffet is the world's second richest man, but for 15 years he has argued that the newspaper business has a declining growth potential. He expanded on his views of the newspaper business in his recent annual letter to shareholders. He pointed out that the young are getting their information from the internet and the old - the ones who read newspapers - are going to their graves.

Profits for newspapers are falling and Buffet says they will not return. He acknowledges that newspapers are trying to make the best of a bad situation by expanding to the Internet, but says, "The economic potential of a newspaper Internet site - given the many alternative sources of information and entertainment that are free and only a click away - is at best a small fraction of that existing in the past for a print newspaper facing no competition."

Global Internet Advertising Forecast To Grow 21% For Each Of Next Five Years

Research firm Piper Jaffrey estimates the global Internet spend will reach $81.1 billion by 2011, based on a 121% annual growth.
It also believes traffic will migrate away from the more traditional media sites to those sites encouraging user-generated content such as YouTube and MySpace.

The bad news for advertisers is that the Internet is becoming increasingly fragmented meaning that buys will be necessary on more sites to get the desired impact.

Images In Getty Collection

We have been counting images on the Creative section of the Getty Images site on a regular basis since November 2003. The figures in the last four months indicate that the combined group of RM and RR images have been growing at a somewhat faster rate than in 2006 while the number of RF images has been growing at a slower pace than 2006.

In the chart below we have broken out RR as a separate category for the first time. In November 2006 we included it as part of the RM category since RR had just been introduced a couple months earlier and most of the images in that category were pulled from RM.

























































  

  

RM

  

RR

  

RF

  

Total

Nov 2003

  

346,091

  

  

  

189,523

  

535,614

Nov 2004

  

434,346

  

  

  

251,161

  

685,507

Nov 2005

  

751,495

  

  

  

404,016

  

1,155,511

Nov 2006

  

973,933

  

  

  

787,281

  

1,761,214

Mar 2007

  

929,018

  

139,175

  

867,450

  

1,935,643



If we look at the change in RM plus RR in the recent four month period 94,260 images have been added. If we extend that rate for a full year 282,780 will be added, while during the period between November 2005 and November 2006 only 222,438 images were added. Most of the additional growth seems to be in the RR category. Getty launched the RR category in September 2006 with about 60,000 images from the RM collection. Thus, if we had a true figure for images still in the RM category in November 2006 it would be somewhere in the range of 913,000 images.

The growth in the RF category in the last four months has been 80,169 images. Extending this rate for a full year it would be 240,507. From November 2005 to November 2006 Getty added 383,265 RF images.

Digital Camera Growth

According to Chris Chute, an analyst at researcher IDC there will be a major drop in digital camera prices this year. Canon and Nikon SLRs that used to cost $1,000 will be down to $299 through discounters. There were 1.7 million SLRs sold in the U.S. in 2006 and that number is expected to jump to $2 million in 2007.

Canon's market-leading 10-megapixel EOS Digital Rebel XTi lists at $799 and the price is expected to fall rapidly. Nikon offers a 6-megapixel D40 for $599 and a 10-megapixel D40X for $799. With cheaper cameras more and more amateurs and semi-pros may begin offering their images for sale through the micropayment sites.

Canon is offering its EOS-1D Mark III for $4,000 and it can shoot 110 pictures in 11 seconds.

Nikons senior product manager Steve Heiner says the average Nikon camera lives for only six to eight months before a new model arrives. He says stores and consumers demand to know "What's new."

Getty To Acquire Princess Diana Collection

According to The Stock Asylum Getty will soon announce the acquisition of a collection of images owned by the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. The photos were created by Jayne Fincher, who accompanied Princess Diana as royal photographer from 1981 to 1997. Until now the collection has been represented by Camera Press.

Dreamstime Reports New Numbers

Dreamstime is adding 5,000+ new images to its site daily and has over 1 million images available. They have 275,000+ registered customers from all over the world and 100,000+ unique visitors every day.

Currently they have over 15,000 contributors.

German Stock Photography Market

The German press agency association BVPA conducted a study in 2005 on the German picture market and determined that the total 2005 sales were approximately 200 million euros ($260 million U.S.).

The anonymous survey was sent to 100 member agencies and 44 responded. The average agency that responded earned approximately 860,000 euros. Considering the size of each of the estimated 590 picture agencies in Germany the BVPA arrived at the 200 million euros figure.

The agencies surveyed claimed that 88% of sales came from digital pictures. Sales through foreign partner agencies averaged 6% with direct sales to foreign customers at 9%. Sales by category broke out to 35% magazines, 23% advertisement, 15% book publishing, 14% newspapers, 6% film/television, 1% digital media and 6% other.

VPD To Use Digital Railroad

The Virtual Picture Desk (www.VirtualPictureDesk.com) has selected Digital Railroad as its technology partner for delivering syndicated content for its clients to their distributors and representatives worldwide. VPD manages the editing and syndication of picture collections such as Discovery Channel, DK Images, De Agostini, Japan Travel Bureau, the Irish Image and the Hoberman collections. VPD will use Digital Railroad's platform to syndicate image collections to a variety of VPD distribution channels.

VPD's initial upload includes approximately 85,000 images from Japan Travel Bureau, Hemis.fr and the Hoberman Collection and plans to upload 16 total libraries, each of which will have its own branded archive.

"Digital Railroad's technology will streamline our workflow, speed up the delivery process to each of our client's agents, and subsequently speed the distribution of fresh content to new markets" said George Sinclair, founder and executive director of The Virtual Picture Desk. "Further, our clients will eliminate the risk of lost DVDs and damaged hard drives in transit, and with one member name and password, VPD can manage all collections across the archives, giving us greater efficiencies."

Digital Railroad's proprietary technology enables VPD to simultaneous distribute content across many channels with one upload. The platform allows senders to attach additional file information customized for each client, as well as automatically resizing the transmitted images to accommodate clients' individual needs.

Aurora Select Launched

Aurora Photos has launched "Aurora Select" a photographer representation division in New York City. Aurora Select works with editorial photographers of exceptional vision and story telling skills, representing them in magazine and commercial areas of photography.

Aurora Select works with a select group of photographers including: Bridget Besaw, Jay Clendenin, Jon Lowenstein, Vince Musi, Andy Cutraro, Katja Heinemann, Todd Korol and John Lee. These photographers has made their mark in the editorial world, working for clients such as Time, National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, US News and other international magazines.

Aurora Photos has teamed up with highly experienced leader, David Laidler, to spearhead the evolution of Select. Aurora¹s founder, Jose Azel says, "For years we have been looking for the exceptional individual who could take on the demanding role of directorship of an assignment division. I couldn¹t think of anyone better than David."

Laidler may be contacted at: dlaidler@auroraphotos.com or 646-290-7816


Copyright © 2007 Jim Pickerell. The above article may not be copied, reproduced, excerpted or distributed in any manner without written permission from the author. All requests should be submitted to Selling Stock at 10319 Westlake Drive, Suite 162, Bethesda, MD 20817, phone 301-461-7627, e-mail: wvz@fpcubgbf.pbz

Jim Pickerell is founder of www.selling-stock.com, an online newsletter that publishes daily. He is also available for personal telephone consultations on pricing and other matters related to stock photography. He occasionally acts as an expert witness on matters related to stock photography. For his current curriculum vitae go to: http://www.jimpickerell.com/Curriculum-Vitae.aspx.  

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