ITN has agreed a multi-year partnership with Getty Images to license and distribute its news archive around the world from mid-2017.
The deal will mean ITN closing its ITN Source archive operation, putting around 30 roles from ITN Source at risk of redundancy. These staff have been informed and a consultation period is underway. Structural changes are also being made in ITN’s technology department, meaning the reorganisation of some roles within ITN Productions.
The distribution deal will see over one ITN million clips spanning more than 60 years of news footage be distributed via Getty Images’ global platform in nearly 200 countries.
The deal is the latest in a round of consolidation in the archive sector. Getty Images, the world’s largest video library, struck a deal in January with VCG, owner of its its main rival Corbis, to distribute and licence the Corbis library. Getty has also been licencing the BBC’s content for the past two and a half years.
The ITN archive will be available on gettyimages.com from summer 2017. In the interim, customers can continue to license ITN archive material directly from the ITN Source website.
ITN will continue to syndicate on-the-day news footage to international broadcasters and to create daily video news feeds for digital publishers. ITNedu, which creates bespoke digital content for education publishers, will remain as part of ITN Productions’ Digital Content Services business.
Andy Williams, Managing Director of Digital Content Services, ITN said: “ITN’s archive represents the very best in journalism and this partnership will ensure that we are best-placed to grow our sales internationally and across a broad range of market sectors. Getty Images has the scale, expertise and distribution footprint to ensure ITN’s video archive reaches the widest possible audience and we look forward to a successful partnership.”
Craig Peters, Chief Operating Officer, Getty Images said: “Getty Images is committed to growing and expanding ITN’s video archive business and we look forward to giving customers around the world unprecedented access to this incredible content.”
A ITN spokeswoman said: “The outlook for ITN’s future remains both ambitious and optimistic, and given the continued growth projections, we fully anticipate that by 2018 we will be back to our current levels of staff numbers as new jobs are created in parts of the business which are expanding rapidly.”
Staff Reporter
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