According to the World Association of Newspapers and Newspaper Publisher (WAN-IFRA) global paid-for daily newspaper circulation fell 0.8% in 2009 from a year earlier, to 517 million copies sold. Circulation in Europe is down 5.6% and 4.6% in North America. Circulation in Asia was up 1% with India and China seeing good growth. Advertising revenuewas down 25% in North America, 13.7% in Western Europe, 18.7% in Central and Eastern Europe.
 

Phrases like “it’s not all doom and gloom” pop up often, but those who offer such encouraging analysis are typically in the top tier of the profession. While their experience is certainly real and laudable if not amazing, is it representative enough to be touted as a roadmap to a successful career? Common sense, economics, mathematics and every available source of statistical information says no.

In the fall of 2009, I estimated the size of the worldwide market for still images and illustrations at about $1.45 billion. In the last 12 months sales overall have probably remained about the same with a few companies seeing sales growth, mostly from taking market share from those that have gone out of business. However, there have been some important changes in how those sales are divided among various marketing groups. I estimate that due to price increases gross revenue generated by iStockphoto in 2010 will be between $250 and $300 million.

One of the things RM and traditional RF photographers tend to overlook is average price-per-image-licensed. Photographers worry when their images are licensed for low prices. They track their average royalty-per-image-in-file and the trends of their monthly royalty check. But is a lower royalty check the result of fewer images being licensed, a lower average price-per-license or both?.

We received 251 individual responses to the online survey, posted in May, that was designed to measure photographer income trends. 81% of the respondents were from the U.S. and Canada. Almost 6% were from the United Kingdom. No other country had more than 5 respondents. For 133 of the 251, revenue was down more than 5% in 2009 than in 2008 (probably in most cases a lot more than 5%).  For 56, revenue was in the plus or minus 5% range and for the remaining 62 revenue was up more than 5%.  Forty-one of the 62 were in the early stages of their careers (1 to 4 years) when revenue can be expected to grow.

A 14-month review of data from the leading microstock supports the theory of the fastest-growing industry segment having reached a plateau, with flat unit sales and revenue growth resulting from price increases. The top 198 iStock contributors currently have a combined total of 567,324 images, or about 5.2% of the total collection. In the past six months the collection of this group has grown by an average of more than 10% per contributor with a total of 52,449 images added. Images belonging to these contributors represent 29% of total downloads in the last 14 months.

This story provides links to a series of articles that include the results of a photographer income survey, analysis of the sales of microstock photographers, the size of the market for stock photography and other data useful to understanding stock photo industry trends.

Jim Pickerell is launching a new photographer income survey in an effort to determine general income trends for photographers in the last couple of years. We encourage photographers, worldwide, who have had any earnings whatsoever in the last two years from licensing rights to their images to answer this brief questionnaire.

This story provides a list of useful articles that will provide the reader with a good background on the current state of the stock photography business and where it is headed.

A few days ago we talked about oversupply of imagery, that that is not a problem if there is a huge and growing demand. Some people argue that because so many images are being used on the Internet there must also be a huge and unlimited future demand. We don't think so and this story will outline many of the reasons to believe that the demand for still, generic imagery is declining and why it will continue to decline. Even if you don't believe this to be true there are facts outlined in this story that you ought to consider.

In an effort to obtain updated information on revenue trends in the stock photo industry we will be conducting a revenue survey at the 2010 CEPIC International Congress and New Media Conference in Dublin that takes place June 9th to 13th. In a blind survey we will be asking representatives of every stock agency and stock image distributor to answer 5 brief questions on behalf of their company.

What’s the competition look like in terms of number of images available online? A year ago ImageShack, had 20 billion image and Facebook about 15 billion. In February 2010 it was reported that over 2.5 billion photos were being added to Facebook each month. News Corp’s PhotoBucket currently has more than 8.2 billion photos and Yahoo’s Flickr is in fourth place with over 3.4 billion. But are these numbers really important? What really counts are the number of images on Professional sites that have good keywording, trustworthy model releases and where some editing has been supplied. This story supplies the number of images that fall into this category.

For several years I have estimated that the size of worldwide market for still stock images and illustrations at about $1.8 billion. I’ve also claimed that overall stock photography has been a no-growth business despite the fact that some companies and individuals could point to growth. Now, at the end of 2009 I believe gross revenue for the industry is no more than $1.45 billion and it will probably continue to decline. The stories here break out various segments of the market and explain the overall trends.l

This story provides links to some of the stories on this site that may be of interest to someone new to the stock photography business, or someone who might to have a brief refresher course on some of the things that have been happening in the last few years. Many of these stories will also give you some idea of developing trends and what the future might hold.

For those who think that the use of photography in book publishing and for educational purposes will remain the same in this years ahead this story provides some numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau to consider. Significant changes can be expected in the near future.

In January we published an analysis of the units licensed in 2009 by a group of iStockphoto’s most successful contributors and asked the question “Has Microstock Reached a Plateau?” The first quarter 2010 results seem to confirm this is the case. As a baseline, on June 1, 2009 we did a count of the total number of images licensed in May 2009 by a group of 196 out of the 250 top selling iStock contributors. (Information on some of the top 250 was not available.) There were 442,533 images licensed by this group in that month. Average monthly sales were up only 5% by the end of 2009, but they were down 1% to only 3.9% by the end of March 2010. See the full analysis and the implications for the future.

“RM, RF or Micro” received some interesting comments. Indeed, usage-based pricing is not going away; there will always be some demand for exclusive uses, for which customers will be willing to pay significant amounts of money. The question is how much and whether or not it is wise for most photographers to chase these customers. Stock photography is like a lottery. In the lottery, there are different games with different levels of risk. In games where you can earn the most for your investment, the odds against winning are huge. When the chances of earning something are better, the potential for big winnings is usually not that great. No matter which game you play, there is no guarantee you will earn more than you invest. A few players will hit the jackpot. Many of today’s photographers would have a better chance of profiting if they were to invest in lottery tickets rather than producing images for licensing as stock.

In order to find a proxy for which seasonal holidays were important from a stock photography perspective, I decided to look at how many greeting cards were sent. Christmas & Valentine's Day were 1st and 2nd but I was surprised to find Mother's Day in 3rd place. This article goes into more detail about Mother's Day and also surveys stock photography search results associated with the term.

Using the figures from iStockcharts, we tracked monthly sales of 198 the top 250 photographers. This group represents about a quarter of 1% of iStock’s more than 80,000 contributors. Download numbers reported by iStockcharts are exactly the same as the numbers reported on iStock itself for each contributor, but information for approximately 50 of the top 250 is not made available publicly through iStockcharts.

This chart provides information for 198 of the leading contributors to iStockphoto. It shows the total number of downloads each photographer had as of May 1, 2009 and the minimum and maximum number of downloads the photographer had on December 31, 2009. We were unable to report exact figures for the period May through December because iStockphoto changed its reporting policy in June to only supply a greater than number that indicated the downloads were in a certain range. Using this data and interpolating for the first four missing months in the data we were able to make an estimate of the number of downloads each photographer had in 2009.

ZenithOptimedia (Publicis) says that global ad spend for 2009 will be 10.2% compared to 2008, but that in 2010 it is expected to be up 0.9% compared to 2009. Group M (WPP) thinks 2009 spending will only be down about 6.6% from 2008 levels and expect the 2010 to be 0.8% above 2009. There is no expectation that ad spending will get back to 2008 levels anytime soon.

Alamy sales for the third quarter of 2009 were flat compared to the second quarter, but were down 30% compared with Q3 2008. U.S. Dollar and Euro sales were up slightly compared to Q2 2009, but UK sales were down about 5% from what they were in Q2. Sales for the first three quarters of 2009 were down 30% compared to the same period in 2008.

It’s time to revise previous industry estimates based on what has happened in the stock photo business in the past year. For several years I have estimated that the size of worldwide market for still images and illustrations at about $1.8 billion. I’ve also claimed that overall stock photography has been a no-growth business despite the fact that some companies and individuals could point to growth. Now, at the end of 2009 I believe gross revenue for the industry is no more than $1.45 billion and it will probably continue to decline. This story details how I arrived at this number.

In the last few years, the stock photo industry has experienced significant consolidation. The chart below lists 34 existing companies that have acquired a total of 197 agencies. In general, fewer large companies are controlling the industry as middle-sized and small companies disappear.

In late June, Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer predicted the continued decline of print as an advertising medium and told attendees at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival: “[In the future,] all content consumed will be digital, We can only debate if that may be in one, two, five or 10 years… In 10 years, it will all be online.”

In early 2009 Selling-Stock surveyed photographers, designers and illustrators in an effort to determine how business in 2008 compared with 2007. based on the income generated in 2008. The 2008 survey asks the same questions as the previous year in hopes that the results would provide comparative numbers, enabling creators to make informed decisions about trends in the production and sale of stock images. In this rapidly changing and challenging business environment, many image creators are adjusting business strategies. Some freelance stock photographers are turning to assignments. For others a staff position, possibly even in a non-related field, is now a primary source of income, and the revenue earned from freelance work is only secondary. Conversely, amateurs with no expectations of ever earning a living from photography are finding that selling stock can be a lucrative and rewarding income supplement.

In 2008 on behalf of Selling-Stock we surveyed photographers, illustrators and graphic designers designed to provide useful data for all those who license rights to their images. This story provides detailed results of this survey.

This story outlines industry trends based on the first-quarter 2008 results of all the public companies, plus Alamy.

I believe the gross worldwide revenue that is generated from the licensing of stock imagery, both still photos and illustrations, is about $1.8 billion annually. This story explains in detail the process I went through to arrived at that number.

RF prices vary widely depending on the brand. The following are some of the prices charged for usage by various brands on Getty's site.

The following is a breakdown of Getty's Footage sales per quarter from Q4 2002 through Q4 2007. At the end of 2007 Getty stopped providing breakdowns of individual segments of their business.

Getty Images reported revenue for Q4 2007 of $218.1 million up from $203.7 million in Q4 2006 and from $212.7 million in Q3 2007.

Below is a list of the Getty Images revenue for the various segments of their business quarter by quarter from Q3 2002 through Q4 2007. At the beginning of 2008 Getty stopped supplying quarterly breakdowns.

According to ZenithOptimedia, 2008 ad spending worldwide is expected to reach $453.6 billion with 40% ($183.5 billion) in North America and 25% ($113.5 billion) in Western Europe. These figures are down from an estimated $486 billion at the end of 2007.

One of the biggest hurdles traditional RF and Microstock sellers face when confronted with the idea of switching from an RF pricing structure to a use-based one is how to explain such a switch to customers who’ve been told one price fits all and not to worry about usage.

This story provides a revenue analysis of the stock photo market in 2008 prior to the beginning of the recession.

This charts the stock photo industry revenue trends at the end of the first quarter 2008. The revenue peak was reached in the second quarter of 2008 and then the dramatic slide of the world recession began.

In a recent study by The Association of Commercial Stock Image Licensors (ACSIL) it was determined that the global stock footage industry generates approximately $282 million in licensing revenue annually.

Fifty-five photographers with a gross 2005 income of $8,490,187 responded to our survey. This was up 9.7% from 2004 and 78% of this income was from stock. 30% of the revenue was from Getty and almost 15% from Corbis. The average gross income for the photographers responding was $154,367 and the median income was $126,000.  The average stock income was $119,755 or 78% of the gross.  Comparing these results to previous surveys the gross income and the stock income are maybe a little high, but about what might have been expected.  The results are up from 2003, but about the same as in 2001 and down from 2000.