What is an Image Worth? – October 2026 M&A Activity
For the first fourteen years of researching, writing, and publishing The Target Report, we relied on stock photography to illustrate our monthly commentary. We would search through stock photo and image libraries, seeking an image that illustrated the central theme of that month's article. Sometimes we found exactly what we wanted. More often, we settled for something that came close or needed some additional retouching to make it work.
We purchased images as needed, paid the licensing fees, and incorporated the selected image into the monthly report and the cover of The Target Report Annual Review. Then along came generative artificial intelligence.
When writing the November 2025 The Target Report: New Consolidator Emerges, I imagined two Jenga block stacks, one solidly constructed, standing next to another tower that was wobbly and apparently ready to fall. The article compared two consolidators: one thoughtfully built over many years and another assembled willy-nilly over a short time with no apparent overarching strategy and which had just tumbled down in litigation and bankruptcy filings. I knew what I wanted but could not find a stock image that I could clearly see in my mind’s eye. I turned to ChatGPT, new to me at the time, and after several tries, I had exactly the image that I wanted.
I discovered that I could describe the concept I wanted to illustrate and have an image created specifically for the purpose. It was no longer necessary to search through existing image libraries, adjust our editorial vision to fit what was available, or pay a separate licensing fee for each image. Every image we have used since then has been generated by AI.
Our experience raises a question for companies such as Getty Images: what happens when customers can create the images they once paid to license?
Getty Images Changes the Business of Images
The company traces its origins to 1995, when Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein set out to build a business that would consolidate photographic collections and make imagery more readily available to customers worldwide. The timing was insightful and fortuitous. Photography was transitioning from an analog business, dependent on physical images, transparencies, and complicated distribution channels, to an increasingly digital business in which images could be searched, purchased, and delivered electronically.
Backed by the immense fortune of the Getty oil family, they set out to aggregate the image business by purchasing existing image libraries instead of slowly building from scratch. They recognized the impact that the internet would have on the image business, both in searches and distribution, and began digitizing images to create a centralized, searchable digital library.
Getty grew through acquisitions of photographic archives and competing agencies, assembling a vast library of creative, editorial, historical, sports, and entertainment imagery. Its customers included advertising agencies, publishers, newspapers, graphic designers, and businesses that needed visual content but lacked the resources or inclination to create every image themselves. Getty helped solve a genuine problem. It made it easier for customers to find and license images, and for photographers and archive owners to earn money from them.
The company also established a significant presence in editorial photography. Getty became an ancillary revenue source for the struggling newspaper industry, which produced many of the most meaningful photos in the library. As recently as this past October, Getty announced an agreement to distribute photographs and videos produced by the local newsrooms of Lee Enterprises, whose network encompasses 193 owned and managed media brands across 28 states.
Getty Images went public in 1996, was taken private in 2008, acquired in a secondary PE buyout in 2012, returned to the Getty family’s control in a 2018 buyout, and returned to public ownership in 2022 through a SPAC transaction that valued the business at $4.8 billion, including debt. The company generated approximately $978 million in trailing twelve-month revenue through June 2026; however, this substantial revenue was not enough to overcome its financial obligations.
Comments