Jump to content

PA Media Group acquires Alamy


Recommended Posts

20 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

100000 seems a pretty big number for a b2b/non-retail business. Considering Alamy's turnover, that would only be $200/year/customer.

Ford only has 12000 dealerships, effectively its customers.

 

But each dealership has many customers. If I understand correctly 100 000 is the total number of customers, not distributors. Alamy also sells licences for personal use.

Edited by Homy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

56 minutes ago, Matt Ashmore said:

If you read what has been posted by Alamy/PA.. that’s exactly what they are saying.

 

I didn't read that was the reason for the acquisition, only that the diversity would make them better.  Let's hope they can expand sales in this area.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Homy said:

 

But each dealership has many customers. If I understand correctly 100 000 is the total number of customers, not distributors.

Alamy isn't a retail business apart from PU licences. Its customers are mostly publishers.

You misunderstand the analogy. In the Ford example, it would be like saying that someone who buys a newspaper with an Alamy image is its customer.

  • Love 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

Alamy reached critical mass some time ago, so I guess most of us realized that something like this had to happen eventually.

 

I don't see any reason to pack my bags yet, especially since I don't really have anywhere to go. Hopefully, things will turn out for the best. 

 

Que sera, sera.

Im with you John . I have given  up second guessing . Easier to play the wait and see game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

.....pack my bags yet, especially since I don't really have anywhere to go.

I'm also in that situation. My images are very editorial, and although I did begin uploading to one micro site after the commission change it's not really what I shoot. Most of my eggs are in this basket because I don't know of any other baskets worth putting them in.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Nobody has the intention to build a wall". Walter Ulbricht, leader of the German Democratic Republic,1961. Two month later the wall that divided Germany for 28 years was built.

Lets see how plans will change - I  expect a commission cut, pressure on conditions like force to exclusivity.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

Alamy reached critical mass some time ago, so I guess most of us realized that something like this had to happen eventually.

 

I don't see any reason to pack my bags yet, especially since I don't really have anywhere to go. Hopefully, things will turn out for the best. 

 

Que sera, sera.

 

To me the concept of critical mass in a business sense is the size that a business needs to reach in order to efficiently and competitively compete in their chosen market. Also the size (mass) a  company must sustain to maintain growth and efficiency and sustain sufficient working capital. I'm not sure how this relates to Alamy.

It's a measure of the minimum amount  needed to sustain a business or venture.
I'm not familiar with a critical mass in excess of that, unless of course we are talking nuclear issues?

 

  • Love 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, meanderingemu said:

just in case things happen around here, i just want to send a big Thank You to the community for how welcoming you have been over the last year.  Hope we have a few more.....

 

Same here. The generosity and sharing of knowledge and feedback has made it all worth it in any case. Wonderful community. Many thanks.

  • Love 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

PA Media is part of PA Media Group Limited,  a private company with 26 shareholders, most of whom are national and regional newspaper publishers. The biggest shareholders include the Daily Mail and General Trust, News UK, and UBM.

 

News UK is Murdoch 😕

Daily Mail is Daily Mail 😟

 

Don't newspapers have some self-interest here in a business selling licenses to newspapers?

Edited by geogphotos
Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, Richard Tadman said:

 

To me the concept of critical mass in a business sense is the size that a business needs to reach in order to efficiently and competitively compete in their chosen market. Also the size (mass) a  company must sustain to maintain growth and efficiency and sustain sufficient working capital. I'm not sure how this relates to Alamy.

It's a measure of the minimum amount  needed to sustain a business or venture.
I'm not familiar with a critical mass in excess of that, unless of course we are talking nuclear issues?

 

 

I'm not much of a business head, so I was using the term metaphorically. However, if I were in Alamy's shoes, I'd probably be asking, "What in the world are we going to do with all these images before we go into total meltdown?" So maybe a "nuclear" issue.

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Iain Masterton said:

 

I expect it will be for me. PA will be looking to milk Alamy and there is only one place I see that cash coming from...

 

Will have to start selling directly to clients a lot more. Seems stupid to put your future income in the hands of others

Yep. Agree on all of the above. 

 

This doesn't surprise me though,  to be honest, it looked like the business was being beefed up and prepared for a sale for some time now.  Direct sales may well be the way forward. I've already further reduced the amount of time I spend doing news in favour of other photography work, which was a financial necessity for me. 

 

 The news bit is so small and likely not or not very profitable, I'm not optimistic that they'd want to keep running it. I'll wait and see for a while, not looking forward to potentially having to make a large number of stock pics non-exclusive and do loads of work on them to sell elsewhere. But if needs must...

 

I hope they'll keep the stock brand at least, my worst fear would be for the library to gradually be dumped into a microstock environment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, geogphotos said:

I would expect that PA will want to use its new Alamy content to compete more actively in the general editoral market with Getty and Shutterstock. 

 

We will just have to see what happens.

Agree. They're effectively buying market share in editorial/stock. 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

56 minutes ago, Avpics said:

I'm also in that situation. My images are very editorial, and although I did begin uploading to one micro site after the commission change it's not really what I shoot. Most of my eggs are in this basket because I don't know of any other baskets worth putting them in.

Same here, I opted to maintain content with Alamy. At one time I did begin uploading to a couple of other sites though pretty much abandoned  adding anything more outside of Alamy. I have only been here for a gnats whisker compared with some contributors I suppose. I had a couple of decent sales November and December with Alamy and other nice sales prior to this but nothing really in New Year . Mildly depressing if Alamy end up losing what is unique in the sense of this business they built up and for Alamy contributers, if this takeover leads to drastic changes. This forum and community is a positive. There are personal projects that I d like to spend time on that I have neglected. Other than that, I think I d be inclined to wait it out and hope for the best. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

58 minutes ago, Michael Ventura said:

I am generally an optimist but I have been in this stock photo business for nearly 40 years now and every agency that has gone thru a merger or acquisition, has not ended well for me as a supplier.  I hope this one is somehow different in very way!

 

Better a buyout than going bust. I've had the latter happen after contributing almost 20 years to an agency.

 

Still don't don't know what they did with most of my slides...

  • Love 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There’s a lot of doom and gloom in this thread.. which I do get as people don’t like change or uncertainty and in many cases have had bad experiences in similar situations. But this could go the other way.. as an example, look at Adobe.

 

Combined, PA and Alamy could have greater reach, more customers and so more sales. PA might put investment into Alamy to make it better. 
 

We just have to ride the rollercoaster andd see where it goes!

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.