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Strategies & Market Trends : Zeev's Turnips - No Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DanWebzster who wrote (1838)	10/26/2001 6:07:40 PM
From: Paul Kern	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99280

Dan, As another professional photographer and one who made good money shorting GETY, I don't see that they will ever make money. They have alienated their investors, their suppliers, and their customers. Who is left to alienate? GETY still doesn't realize that selling stock photos to the advertising and graphics industries isn't like selling wigets and, so, their top line shrinks every quarter. Paul

To: DanWebzster who wrote (1838)	10/27/2001 12:51:22 AM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 99280

That is a tough question. I can say without a doubt stock image prices are falling. Editorial rates have not risen in 10 years, and more and more and more people want to enter the field. Non-royalty image disks are competing against all but the very best of talent. That talent is not often with stock agencies. I do not like the contracts of some of these comanies but I do not know specifically about the company you are asking about. Essentially they are trying hard to pass more costs on to photographers as well as take more money off the top of each sale. It used to be a 50/50 split, now many agencies want 60/40. Oversea sales were always at a lower rate of 60/40 or so and that is being reduced as well. What does this mean. Well I guess it is the following. 1) These companies are struggling to keep profits up 2) Photographers are ready to bolt these agencies but unless they have a bunch of advertizing clients or a steady stream of other income there is nowhere to run to. Many of the top photographers have special contracts at better rates but the pressure is there, on them as well. 3) Photography is a very very tough industry all around. For the agencies and the photographers both 4) Add revenue, and the amount buyers are willing to pay for a shoot keeps dropping. The one photographer who has the Marboro cigarette acct gets $1M per year, free use of helicopters, and only has to produce 4 images a year for national add campaigns. Now, how many want that spot and how many openings are there? I can tell you, I sell far more images on my own accord that my agencies have done for me. One went under, and returned my images to me. Not sure any of this makes for a great short, but if any of these companies are trading at lofty levels, I would suggest they have no way to go but down. Competition is intense and there will be shakeouts guaranteed in the stock business. M