Posted by Bud on December 19, 2009 at 23:19:28:
Sun-Times Media's photo sale puts focus on maximizing assets
Phil Rosenthal | Tribune Media
December 20, 2009
A photograph is a single moment, framed and frozen, yet individuals looking at it sometimes each see something different.
More than simply conveying a time, a place, a mood, an event, an association, those actually in a shot can peer into the picture and beyond its margins. The photographer spots features and flaws unnoticed by others, the image accompanied by the circumstances of capturing it. Others bring their own context, memories and aesthetic values.
Sun-Times Media management looked at the photos in its extensive archives, including shots from the Chicago Sun-Times and the late great Chicago Daily News, and what it saw was an untapped asset.
No media company these days can afford to overlook an asset, and sure enough this one has been sold.
The company confirmed as much Friday, although it declined to share any details beyond the fact that the transaction did not include the papers' intellectual property. That means the company still owns all the copyrights, although that's only useful if all the aging pics no longer in its physical possession were painstakingly digitally scanned and properly cataloged for later use.
Open questions include when and with whom the deal was done, the value of the deal, how many photos are involved and whether Sun-Times Media gets a share in subsequent revenue from peddling the photo.
Pics already are showing up on eBay from a pair of sellers from Arkansas with the user names "narfrontrunners" and "lexibell."
Photos on the block include vintage pictures of sports icons Michael Jordan and Ernie Banks, apparently straight from the file cabinets. Notes and crop marks remain on some, although "narfrontrunners" helpfully points out these can be removed with a baby wipe.
Now one might quibble with this particular arrangement, especially the haphazard, piecemeal way in which the Sun-Times photographs now seem to be hitting the open market online. Until more is known, it's hard to say how good or smart a deal it was.
It's not clear whether any attempt was made to keep the collection intact as a historical resource; it's possible some institution could have lined up foundation money for an acquisition.
The paper's current and former photographers also might have wanted a crack at buying pics.
But media companies, struggling to monetize so much of what they do, are hardly so awash in cash that they can sit on something they believe they can convert right away.
So everyone -- including the Chicago Tribune, whose parent Tribune Co. has operated under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since last December -- is at least talking about selling this or that, and trying to figure out how to maximize value.
The Wall Street Journal, for example, isn't only moving to charge those who want to access its content by mobile phone. It just switched its Hollywood representation from Creative Artists Agency to United Talent Agency, hoping to drum up interest in sales of TV and film story rights to its articles.
National Geographic, for the first time, opened its 11.5 million-image, 121-year-old archive to sell original photographs and illustrations as fine art through New York's Steven Kasher Gallery in September and October. Like the Sun-Times, the magazine retained digital and publication rights.
Bytes safely stashed, there was no need to keep the original when someone else would pay handsomely to put it on their own wall.
Media companies are no different than your neighbor, having garage sales when they need storage space and/or money and/or think the price for their stuff is peaking.
Time Warner put some vintage Mad magazine artwork up for sale at Christie's and Sotheby's in the 1990s, and aficionados and some of the artists themselves crowded into the room to see if they could afford these links to their respective pasts.
Readers saw their youths in those pages. Asked what he saw when his work was on the block, Mad's Al Jaffee, a writer and artist known for his "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" and "Mad Fold-in" features, recalled the effort behind it. "I see my sweat cascading down the falls," he said.
These days, everybody in traditional media is sweating it out at least a little. And even if Sun-Times Media dodged liquidation with the arrival of new owners in October, you might be able to see that perspiration in each archival photo available on eBay.