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holdings
This note considers Getty Images, one of the dominant
image libraries.
It covers -
introduction
Getty Images is a dominant image
library. It licenses still and moving images to book
and magazine publishers, advertisers, broadcasters, film
and multimedia developers.
Its library includes around 70 million still images (including
the UK Hulton photo archive and Stone Images) and 30,000
hours of film.
Revenue in 2000 was around US$500 million. In 2003 it
reported profits of US$64 million on revenue of US$523
million, up from US$21.5 million on revenue of US$463
million in 2002. As of late 2007 it claimed an average
service of 3.2 billion images and 4 million unique visitors
at its web site each month.
The group had roughly 2,400 employees as of 2006 and is
probably best known in Australia for services provided
by its PhotoDisc and The Image Bank arms.
Its corporate site is here.
development
The
group was founded by Mark Getty and is independent of
the Getty Foundation established by his oil billionaire
grandfather.
In 2001 it announced that it was close to selling Art.com,
its online retail operation. Art.com was established in
1997 as Artuframe, to sell limited edition prints, photographs
and posters using the Amazon.com model. Contrary to local
opinions that a 'generic' domain name is a licence to
print money, shedding the clunky Artuframe name in favour
of something catchier didn't result in overwhelming success.
It was acquired by Getty in 1999 (for around US$110 million)
to serve as a B2C unit but revenue's proved elusive in
the face of online and offline competition. Rivals such
as Eyestorm
(now repositioning itself as an offline retailer), Artnet.com
and eArtGroup
were also doing poorly.
Getty had expanded through acquisition of image libraries,
for example paying US$183 million for Eastman Kodak's
Image Bank in 1999 and £8.6 million for the Hulton
Deutsch Collection (which traced its origins to Hulton's
Picture Post) in 1996.
In 2000 Getty paid United News
& Media US$225 million for Visual Communications Group
(VCG).
VCG encompassed four major brands, licensing images in
separate geographic regions: Telegraph Colour Library
in the United Kingdom, FPG in the United States, Bavaria
Bildagentur in Germany and Pix in France. VCG also distributes
in other markets through third party agents. VCG specialty
image collections including Giraudon (a Paris-based fine
art library), Planet Earth (natural history), Space Frontiers
(space imagery) and Colorific (celebrity news and features
agency). VCG had acquired Definitive Stock - a Seattle-based
provider of royalty-free online images - in 1999 for US$20
million.
In 2006 Getty acquired bought Calgary-based stock photo
company iStockphoto for US$50 million. iStockPhoto originated
in 2000 as a venue for designers to swap images, subsequently
establishing a credit system through which users could
license use of an image for C$1. In January 2006 it relaunched
its web site, with high-resolution images priced at C$5,
medium at C$3 and low-res at C$1. It also licenses illustrations
and runs a higher-priced spin-off called iStockPro. The
company boasted that
the
acquisition demonstrates that Getty Images recognizes,
supports and embraces the power of the culture of participation
that is sweeping the Web and is continuing to implement
its stated strategy of serving image buyers at all price
points on all platforms and in all markets.
In
February 2007 Getty announced that it had agreed to be
acquired by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman
for US$2.4 billion. It had earlier announced it was for
sale, with analysts forecasting the price would be around
US$1.5 billion.
Mark Getty
has specialist publishing interests, centred on
the Wisden Group. In 2003 Wisden acquired Cricinfo
(sold to Disney's ESPN in June
2007). Getty sold The Wisden Cricketer magazine
to BSkyB and The Oldie through an MBO in May
2007.
studies
There has been no major study of Getty Images.
 next
page (Getty landmarks)
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