17.12.2020
The Czech News Agency (ČTK) and the Profimedia.CZ a.s. group entered the final phase of negotiations on a possible acquisition of Profimedia by the Czech News Agency. Today the parties confirmed their interest in carrying out the transaction.
The aim of the acquisition is to offer the market the most complete service of licensing photographs and other visual materials. This will allow customers to work comfortably in one environment with efficient search. Shared content on a common platform will allow users to save on additional resources no matter what specific types of photos they need. Customers will no doubt appreciate that their photographic needs will be administered from a single location that addresses all their visual content needs and licensing conditions gradually converging.
The planned acquisition will make it possible to offer clients new services based on the connection of the largest national creator of news, photographs and the owner of a rich historical photo archive with the largest provider of visual material from abroad, representing a number of the world’s top photo banks.
While maintaining existing services, Profimedia’s clients will not only gain access to new unique content, but also, thanks to ČTK’s professional and technical background, more accurate and broader targeting within individual topics, a larger thematic scope, photo selection offers for numerous new events in the future and support from the national press agency.
ČTK clients will gain access to a wider photographic offer while maintaining existing services. In addition, clients of both companies will be able to work in one user interface.
With the acquisition of Profimedia, ČTK will reach some new foreign markets. It will also acquire a modern technological platform for the sale of photographs, which was developed in-house at Profimedia and already serves several photo banks around the world. By expanding the offer of visual content, ČTK aims primarily at the non-media market, where it feels the opportunity for the growing use of agency services. ČTK’s management also expects the acquisition to strengthen the economic benefits for the operation of the agency.
ČTK is a national press agency established by law. It operates as a trading corporation and does not receive subsidies from public sources. ČTK offers 450 to 600 news items a day, roughly 300 own news and stock photographs and other photographs from the partners it represents, including, for example, the Associated Press, dpa and other leading world creators and photobanks, as well as individual photographers. There are now over a million photographs in the digitized part of the ČTK photo archive, and this number is constantly increasing. ČTK has about 250 employees and an annual turnover of more than 250 million Czech crowns (10 million euros).
The Profimedia.CZ a.s. offers more than 200 million photos from its partners, including Shutterstock, AFP, New York Times. Represents more than 350 suppliers of images from all around the world and in all subject areas: illustration photography, news, celebrities, fashion, food, garden, portraits, historical images, reports, art, music, film footage. The deal includes Profimedia itself (based in the Czech Republic) and its subsidiaries in Hungary, Croatia and Rumania. The group has 26 employees and an annual turnover of almost 130 million Czech crowns (5 million euros).
