Newswire

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%.

The library of New Zealand wildlife production company NHNZ Worldwide has added new footage from the Tibetan Plateau. At 5000 meters above sea level the company’s cameras captured material of the plateau’s only species of snake, the Hot Spring Snake, in action amongst the volcanic springs. The library also newly hosts content of the continent’s fastest animal, the Tibetan antelope, and clips of a giant Tibetan bear along with cubs and footage of Tibet’s only primate, the Tibetan Macaque.

The British National Motor Museum has established a YouTube site for its commercial operation, Beaulieu Film and Video. The collection has material from 1900 onwards and comprises of around 26,000 items. Significant collections include those of Ford, Vauxhall, the Rootes Group, the Metropolitan Police, the AA and Dunlop as well as a wide range of motoring-related topics including home movies, promotional films, motorsport, record breakers, racing cars, production cars, prototypes, concept vehicles, trucks, motorcycles and buses.

British Pathe is extending its partnership with UK digital asset management company Capture to launch a new website. After utilising elements of Capture’s rights and licensing capabilities for several years, Pathe is upgrading to a full all-in-one visual media management and eCommerce platform. Pathe, which represents an archive of more than 220,000 films, says the new arrangement "really drives efficiency in our day-to-day operations".

UK footage house Screenocean has become part of Thomson Reuters in a deal to acquire Screenocean’s parent company, media asset management company Imagen Ltd. The business will be operated as part of the Reuters News division of Thomson Reuters.

The Science Library, founded in 1979 as a resource for scientific photographic images encompassing all aspects of science and health and their impact and role in everyday life, has newly created a video offering under the title The Climate Library. It contains what is described as “a diverse and fast-growing collection of spectacular Ultra High Definition footage” and is a collaboration with internationally acclaimed film director Liz Courtney, producer of innovative, science-led documentaries on climate change.

The annual awards hosted by London-based trade body FOCAL International saw two UK footage houses getting awards — Huntley Film Archives was voted best Footage Company of the Year, and Yorkshire and North East Film Archives’ Graham Relton was named Footage Person of the Year. Full results of the awards in production and restoration are available on the Federation’s website.

New Mid-East focused clip sales business Orchard Clips, which launched in March this year, has appointedtGreg Aslangul as Head of Sales. He previously worked at arabianEye, based in Dubai, where he had held a number of positions, most recently Managing Director overseeing year-on-year sales growth and helped develop key global partnerships. Orchard Clips'92 aims to become the go-to destination for video clips from and about the Middle Eastern region.

Despite a drop in e-commerce sales, royalty-free house Shutterstock marked up an eight percent year-on-year increase in revenues in what Chief Exec Paul Hennessy calls “an exceptional quarter.” Reporting the period January-February this year, accounts showed overall revenue $215.3 with cash flows increasing by $44.1 million to $66.8 million. The decline in E-commerce revenue was partially offset by revenue generated from Pond5 which was acquired in May 2022. Revenue from the company’s Enterprise sales channel increased 33% as compared to the first quarter of 2022, to $95.5 million, and represented 44% of first quarter revenue. During the first quarter of 2023, Shutterstock says it now offers a collection of 615 million still images and 47 million footage clips.

The UK’s Sky News,has renewed its longstanding exclusive video partnership with Getty Images. For more than a decade, Getty Images has been the exclusive distributor for the Sky News archive that features latest news coverage and archive footage spanning over 30 years and contained in over 150,000 clips. Getty Images says its video collection these days contains over 23 million clips, including content from editorial video producers such as NBC News Archives, BBC Motion Gallery, VICE Media, ITN and Bloomberg.

Former Head of BBC Broadcast Archives, Sue Malden has been named the 2023 recipient of the Lifetime Award conferred by footage trade body FOCAL International. Sue, a former Chair of FOCAL, has, over the years, contributed to the Royal Television Society’s Archive group, the Consultative Committee of the British Library’s National Sound Archive, BAFTA’s Archive Committee, Executive Coordinator for the FIAT/IFA Archives at Risk project; IBC’s Archive Day and has acted as consultant to other media management initiatives. In retirement, Sue is chair of the board of trustees to MACE (the media Archive of Central England). Award presentations will be at FOCAL’s annual awards ceremony in London in June.

Industry giant Getty Images reported a drop in revenues in the last quarter of 2022 saying it continues to see economic headwinds and foreign exchange effects. The the company recorded a loss of $22.9 million in the quarter, compared with a profit of $22.7 million for the same period a year earlier. Revenue declined 3.2 percent to $231.5 million on the back of foreign exchange pressures, Getty Images said income from creative licensing declined nearly seven percent while editorial licensing increased by over three percent. For the whole of 2022 revenues of $926.2 million showed a slight upturn.

Working alongside staff at the Reuters Los Angeles bureau, UK-based footage house Screenocean has completed the second phase of an extensive digitisation and cataloguing project providing access to a full range of unique clips showcasing the glitzy celeb world of Hollywood. Thousands of master tapes have been digitised, expanding the collection first undertaken in 2020. The project follows in the footsteps of the success of the Reuters South Africa