Waiting to exhale

April 10, 2007 by pmelcher.

I received numerous links to a New York Times article this morning, announcing, in a very smooth, borderline official press release, that the Chief Executor of Corbis title has officially been transfered from one lawyer to another. Must have signed a lot of papers to make this happen.

The New York Times, in a very “we are pleased to have the exclusivity therefore we will not write anything negative”, never questions the fact that during his 10 years of “leadership”, the Attila of photography, Steve Davis, has never, ever posted a profit.
After all, it is quite normal to own the rights to more than 100 million images, “including some of the most famous photographs ever” and loose money. It is also quite normal for a company older and better funded than its arch rival competitor, Getty Images, to only have 11 % of the market against 40 %. I guess these days you can trade investigative journalisms in exchange to having the right of breaking the news.

The new CEO, Gary Shank, has a lot of work ahead of him. Unfortunately, he seems to follow the school of Davis’ photo thinking by finding “ the next great group of Corbis photographers”, as he calls the ever trendy crowdsourcing elements. What is wrong with the ones they already have ? If I was a Corbis photographer, I would be highly insulted by this remark, regarding amateurs nonetheless. As in the past, Corbis has always been keen to purchase new collections after finding out they were incapable of returning a profit on the ones acquired previously. What they seem completely oblivious about is the fact that every time they buy an existing profitable agency, they also endanger the livelihood of all the photographers that once belonged to those agencies or collections. Nor do they care, it seems.

If someone with great talent and industry knowledge, more focused on what the market needs rather than trying to please internal corporate culture, would take the helm at Corbis, they could do a lot of damage. A lot. Someone needs to push the panic button now and wake up the sleeping giant. It is not too late. Wether it is Gary Shenk, who seems happier selling rights clearances, for which Corbis does not need to return any commission to anyone, that remains the big question. And will Steve Davis, in his new position of Master in the sky, senior veteran adviser, will let him? After all, if Gary succeeds in making the big C. profitable, it will really make Steve look bad. And that is an absolute “NO NO” in the corporate world.
At least, I was partly right in my predictions for 2007 .

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