Getty has announced to its RF image image suppliers that in April it will be consolidating its 12 RF collections into 5 in an effort to improve the customer's experience. This story points out things to look for as a result of the change.
The Irish Image Collection, founded by George Munday, has been acquired in an asset purchase by a group of Canadian investors known as Stock Image Collectors Inc. This group acquired all rights to 20,000 RM images belonging to over 100 photographers. The group also owns a controlling interest in Design Pics Inc., an RF company based in Edmonton, Canada.
Getty Images, Inc. gathered leaders from top U.S. Hispanic advertising agencies and publications for the inaugural meeting of Creativisimo!, a series of industry discussion groups convened to gauge the future imagery needs of visual communicators.
This edition of Random Thoughts has stories on: Will Flickr Enter Stock Photo Market?; User Generated Content; YouTube To Share Revenue; Digital Railroad Receives Additional Funding; Midwestock Closes Doors; Getty Offers Creative Research To All Image Producers and Boughn Joins Dreamstime.
PACA recently released the results of a survey of its U.S. based member companies that shows significant revenue growth for stock agencies between 1H2005 and 1H2006. 28% of the respondents had revenue growth between 10% and 20% during the period and 30% had growth greater than 20%. Respondents also expected an average 13% increase for the second half of 2006, but there are good reasons to believe it didn't turn out that positive.
If you're interested in continuing to work as a photographer five to ten years down the road take a look at Current TV which takes crowdsourcing to a new level. For those trying to make a living producing still illustrations, beware!
This group of releases includes: Adobe Debuts Photoshop Lightroom 1.0; Corbis/Smithsonian Offers Celebrated Images of American Culture; Newscom Hires Director of Sales and Launches New Brand Image; and Michael Masterson Joins Janou Pakter, Inc. As Company Launches Photography Division and West Coast Office.
This group of releases includes: Huntstock Launches Royalty Free Image Collection; Pozo Digital Emerges As Authentic Source For Hispanic Images; StockFood Opens UK Office; plainpicture Launches In The UK and VIEW Announces Photographer's Open Day.
The stories in this issue include: Apologies To Getty Images; Cranking Up New Business Models; Citigroup Surveying Photographers; Swedish News Agency Buys Scanpix; Online Growth For 2007; Jupiter Offers HD Stock Footage and TV Ads by Amateurs.
Getty Images reported revenue for Q4 2006 of $203.5 million up 9.5 percent from
$185.8 million in Q4 2005 and up from $198.1 million in Q3 2006. However, profit declined as a result of restructuring and other costs. The company earned $30.3 million, or $.50 per share, down from $42.5 million, or $.64 per share, during the same period in 2005.