Getty CEO says aims to add video service

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.

While growth in 2007 is not likely to hit the same high level, it will remain strong, said Klein.

Getty is in the midst of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission informal inquiry into past stock options grants and has delayed filing its quarterly report.

It has seen its stock decline sharply from about $94 a year ago, amid concerns over its growth prospects. The share closed at $43.69 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.

The company has forecast 2007 revenue growth in the mid-single digit percentages and earnings per share growing at 1.5 times the rate of sales growth.

Seattle-based Getty also wants to build up its business into an integrated commercial and editorial service overseas in countries like China, Japan, Italy and Spain next year.

In these European countries for example, Getty does not cover soccer, despite being the largest sports photographer in the world.

"We don't do that yet in Italy or Spain or France, and in those countries soccer is a religion," Klein said.

(For more coverage of the Reuters Media Summit, please see our MediaFile blog at blogs.reuters.com/mediafile)