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An influential figure in the stock footage world, David Seevers has died aged 58 after a battle with cancer. David, who was for over ten years Chief Marketing Officer for Footage.net, was the author significant reports on the industry, the four editions of ACSIL’s Global Survey of Stock Footage Companies, the last published in 2019. David was a former head of ABC Library Sales, was an Executive Director of FOCAL and through his consultancy Thriving Archives worked with a range of companies and organisations in the sector.

Footage house Historic Films has acquired rights to market clips from the tv program ‘Camera Three’, said to be America’s top anthology arts program in the 25-years it was on air. Launched in 1956, ‘Camera Three’ showcased drama, ballet, art, music, film, literature and anything involving fine arts. It included live performances and hundreds of celebrity interviews. It began as a Sunday afternoon local program on WCBS-TV in New York before moving to the network on CBS, and later to PBS. The material is currently in the process of being scanned and digitized from the original kinescopes and tape masters.

In a deal with The Baim Collection, UK-based Orchard Clips has taken on a selection of films shot across Jordan, Lebanon and Israel between 1961 and 1973 and packaged them up for clip sales. Harold Baim was a director, writer and prolific producer of 35mm short features for UK cinema release. Sometimes called ‘quota-quickies’, these films included colourful widescreen travelogues. Bain died in 1996.

The recipient of this year’s The FOCAL International Lifetime Achievement Award is Eric Land Kulberg, Owner/Partner at Washington-based research and clearance company Universal Media, Inc.The award is gifted each year by the FOCAL International executive board to an individual who has contributed to and supported the audiovisual archive industry within their career and through the body of work . Eric began working in television in 1961 at the age of 16 at KTVA, the CBS affiliate in Anchorage, Alaska. In his career, Eric produced programming for domestic and international outlets as well as directed and edited hundreds of commercials and political advertisements, including the Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter Presidential campaigns. For the last 27years, Eric’s company has been has been clearing music, footage, photos and guilds for documentaries, film playbacks, infomercials and other media users.

The UK’s Sky TV has a new web presence covering a host of what it calls “content services,” including its well-established clip sales division. The footage licensing team offers news, sport and entertainment material from more than 20 years of coverage.

The ITN Archive has unearthed an extensive and rare interview with legendary broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow. Working with London film lab and digital facility Cinelab. The vinegar-syndromed film interview has been unseen since broadcast in 1958, and covers early opinions on LBJ, JFK, UK/US relations, the H bomb and a host of anecdotes. ITN footage is licensed through Getty Images.

The latest official figures published by the British Film Institute’s Research and Statistics Unit show that in a year in which film and high-end TV production was impacted globally by the Hollywood strikes and a tv advertising drop-off, it continued to generate billions to the UK economy. The combined spend by film and high-end television production during 2023 reached £4.23 billion, 32% down on 2022 but almost level with pre-pandemic levels.

The organisers of the FOCAL International Awards that is scheduled to be held the on June 20 at London’s Church House in Westminster have revised submissions deadlines in some categories. The new deadline for the production, researcher and restoration and preservation categories is February 28. The trade body's awards honour the exceptional use of archival footage across creative sectors.

New York Stock Exchange-listed royalty free house Shutterstock has announced an 11 per cent increase in the dividend paid to shareholders. Giving details, the directors say the new dividend of $0.30 per share is an increase of three cents per share on the previous award, adding that the increase is representative of “the growth we have experienced in our operating profitability and cash flow”. Shutterstock markets a collection of 52 million video clips alongside a holding of photos and other media.

New Jersey-based Global Image Works has a new-look website and has introduced an archive of audio recordings that includes over 300 interviews with figures from the world of rock, soul and pop including music executives, engineers and record producers, the earliest from the 1890s. The privately-owned archive says the new web interface integrates search capabilities through footage, photos and audio collections.

Adobe’s image subscription service, previously dominated by High Definition footage, has added 15 million 4K videos. The subscription service starts at $30 a month for an annual plan, a deal that gives publication access to 10 images a month.

Britain’s Channel Four TV is reported to be laying off 15 per cent of its staff, some 250 employees, and has reduced its programming budget, in the face of a major drop off in tv advertising. Its chief executive says the industry is in “market shock” territory. The channel that is Government-owned but funded by advertising reports an income drop off of between 8pc and 9pc last year compared with the previous year.

The owner of footage house Storm Stock, Martin Lisius, drives an Acura MDX SUV when storm chasing to add material to his ever increasing holding of weather footage. In August last year he completed a self-produced video commercial about the vehicle, a work entitled Acura MDX “Storm Chaser”. Now he has won the award for Best Commercial at the World Film Festival at Cannes.

US footage house Historic Films has a new-look website that the company says is “streamlined, technically more efficient and visually more appealing” than its predecessor. Historic’s Anthea Carr worked with Adam Putter and his team at Bad Math in Toronto over the the design and usability aspects. New features include the ability to export research data structured for use in project spreadsheets, search results that use language understanding to correct misspellings and keyword autocomplete giving users a list of similar result possibilities.

London-based Orchard Clips, which specialises in footage from and about the Middle East and North Africa, has a new content marketing agreement with Veritone, Inc., an innovative technology company designing what it describes as “human-centred AI solutions”. Orchard says the deal will “enhance content licensing opportunities in North and South America.”

The UK’s Channel 4 tv, which spent a record £730m on original and acquired productions last year, has cut back on commissioning to stretch its budgets after what it calls “the dire state of the traditional UK TV ad market.” The state-owned broadcaster channel’s chief executive has said the UK TV industry is reeling from “the worst advertising downturn in 15 years”, forcing C4 to consider tapping into emergency funding.

A funeral has been held for Chris O’Hearn, who began the transformation of AP Archive into one of a leading news footage collections, has died suddenly at the age of 57. He was a director on the executive board of FOCAL from May 2004 to September 2005. and had a passion for news footage that stemmed from his early career as a TV journalist in his native Australia and then at Sky News in London. Chris joined AP in 1995 after its launch as an international TV news agency, holding senior newsroom roles in London and then New York. In 2001, he switched to a business role in London as Head of Content Development which included streamlining operations in the AP Archive and laying the groundwork for later digitisation.

British privately owned stock photography agency Alamy has taken on board the PA Media Video Collection (the video arm of the Press Association news agency). The collection offers a curated archive of 43,000 clips encapsulating UK current news, sports and entertainment.

Footage industry trade body FOCAL International has announced the opening of its submission period for its yearly awards competition. The FOCAL International Awards celebrate the best use of archival footage across the creative and cultural industries, acknowledges the best examples of archive restoration and preservation practice as well as honouring the people and companies that make up the industry.

Getty Images' income dropped off in the second quarter of 2023 compared with the same period last year. In an interim report, the company says its revenues of $225.7 million declined 3.3%. Creative revenues of $141.3 million were down 3.7% year over year while editorial revenues of $80.3 million were down 3.2%.