By Robert MacMillan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Getty Images Inc. GYI.N plans to offer video news, possibly in partnership with a major news organization, as it aims to broaden its consumer appeal, the company's chief executive said on Thursday.
"We have to add increasing value to the picture so what we're doing is adding audio and we're adding film," Klein told the Reuters Media Summit in New York.
"We will be in the editorial film business. Whether we do that alone or in partnership, we're still looking at (that)," he said, adding that could be with any major outlet offering news video.
Klein would not give a timeframe for such a service. But he sees video as one future growth area, along with beefing up Getty's entertainment and international businesses as a key segment of its stock photography business cools.
Getty has grown to the world's largest provider of stock photography, or images sold to media companies and advertising agencies, since it was founded 11 years ago. But it is seeing higher growth rates in editorial photos.
"In the stock photography business, business has definitely slowed down," said Klein, who is also the company's co-founder. "There are more and more places and ways to get an image. Everybody is now a digital photographer."
Editorial has grown to account for about 21 percent of the business, compared to less than 10 percent five years ago.
The company's entertainment business grew 60 percent this year, driven by what Klein described as an "insatiable" public interest in celebrity photos. Continued...
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