The cost of producing images certainly hasn’t declined in the last 8 years. If anything it has increased. But, it is interesting to take a look at what’s been happening to the return-per-image on file based on Getty Images figures.
I went back to the period from 2004 to 2007 when Getty was a public company and reporting sales on a quarterly basis. The
Revenue figures below are for the segment of their business that Getty calls Creative Stock Images (RM and RF). At one time this segment represented almost 80% of the company’s gross revenue. Today, it probably represents less than 25% of their business.
During the same period, near the end of each year, I also tracked the number of
RM and RF Images in Getty’s collection. I did this by searching the collection for the number of images with the keywords: horizontal, vertical, panoramic or square. I made the assumption that all images were keyworded with one, and only one, of these four orientations. If there were images in the database with no orientation keyword then I missed them. This count does not include any of the images in Getty’s Editorial collection.
In May of 2012 when Getty was making plans for the eventual sale of the company to the
Carlyle group Moody’s and Standard & Poors reported that Getty’s total 2011 revenue was $945 million. Based on other information that was available I estimated that the Creatives Stock Images segment of their revenue was probably in the range of $210 million. Check out this
story to see how I arrived at that figure.
Below are figures for the gross annual revenue for each year listed, the approximate number of images in the collection during the year and the average
Return Per Image calculated by dividing images into revenue. The figures under revenue are in millions of dollars.
| Revenue (millions) |
|
|
|
| |
RM |
RF |
Total |
| 2004 |
$297.30 |
$204.53 |
$501.60 |
| 2005 |
$315.72 |
$272.87 |
$588.60 |
| 2006 |
$325.70 |
$308.17 |
$639.10 |
| 2007 |
$305.00 |
$327.34 |
$632.60 |
| |
|
|
|
| 2011 Est. |
$120.00 |
$90.00 |
$210.00 |
| |
|
|
|
| Images |
|
|
|
| |
RM |
RF |
Total |
| 2004 |
434,346 |
252,161 |
686,507 |
| 2005 |
751,495 |
404,016 |
1,155,511 |
| 2006 |
973.933 |
787,281 |
1,767,214 |
| 2007 |
1,174,692 |
964,277 |
2,138,919 |
| |
|
|
|
| Sept. 2012 |
3,076,539 |
2,615,111 |
5,691,650 |
| |
|
|
|
| Return Per Image |
|
|
|
| |
RM |
RF |
Total |
| 2004 |
$684.48 |
$811.11 |
$730.66 |
| 2005 |
$420.00 |
$675.39 |
$509.39 |
| 2006 |
$334.42 |
$391.44 |
$361.64 |
| 2007 |
$259.64 |
$339.47 |
$295.76 |
| |
|
|
|
| Sept. 2012 |
$39.00 |
$34.42 |
$36.90 |
Keep in mind that the Return Per Image figures are average gross sales figures. Photographers who receives a 20% or 30% royalty will only receive that percentage of these numbers.
For some photographers who are producing new images things may not be quite as bad as these bottom line 2012 figures show. While there are way too many images in the collection (and in most other stock image collections), most of the images are never seen. Thus, the ones that are seen may return much higher figures than the overall averages. Newer images tend to stay near the top of the search returns, and certain collections are given preference over others. But as more images from any source are added older images, or those that weren’t quickly licensed when they were first added to the site, will be pushed down in the search return order.
Images from photographers that were added to the collection a few years ago, or even a few months ago if they are of popular subjects, are probably never seen by today’s customers, or going forward. Most customers don’t review that many images before they change the search parameters or go somewhere else. If there are very few images in the collection of the subject the photographer shoots, or with the keywords used, then the images may be seen for a longer period of time. But often there isn’t that much demand for such subject matter.
More precise keywording helps, but there is probably very little agencies or photographers can do to alter these trends. Agencies could edit tighter and be more selective in what they offer customers, but that would simply make it much harder for photographer’s to get any image accepted and probably raise the photographer’s average cost per accepted image.
Nevertheless, it is important for photographers to be aware of this trend as they budget for what they can afford to spend, not only in resources, but also in time, for new productions.