1) 'Creative photographic communications' - what does newscast actually do?
newscast is an agency that takes pictures, on behalf of paying customers, to illustrate and create news stories and for use in internal communications and investor relations programmes.
News pictures are taken with the media (generally print), in mind. In this way, the pictures stand a greater chance of being used and the story a greater chance of achieving good levels of coverage.
2) Are you solely media photographers, or do you do other stuff?
Not at all. We work with financial and corporate announcements, media and marketing campaigns, issues management, corporate social responsibility, charitable and governmental initiatives and executive and celebrity portraits. We also specialise in building photo libraries for our clients that illustrate the depth and breadth of their business.
3) If I give you a creative brief, how quickly can you come back to me?
We would aim to respond to a brief within a couple of hours, however we'd far prefer to have more time to generate ideas and 12-24 hours would be ideal.
4) How quickly can you turn a job around?
In a matter of hours. In the case of a financial announcement, we can take the picture at 0830 and have the results on national newspaper picture desks by 1030.
5) If the photo is going to be a 'stunt', can you organise all of it - props, location, people etc etc?
Yes.
6) What's the Idea Generation Service that you feature on your homepage and how does it differ from the Visual Consultancy service?
The Idea Generation Service is free for anyone to use and, simply, provides three picture ideas in response to a short written brief and guarantees a response within 12 hours of receipt of an email. Of course, if any of the ideas are used, we expect to be asked to tender for the assignment.
Visual Consultancy is about developing story ideas for a customer, building a creative treatment, producing images and generating coverage - it is a whole package for which we charge a fee.
7) Do you do simple things like supplying prints, or images on CDs, or email?
We deal in the whole photographic process, according to the needs of our clients.
8) When you talk about a global network of photographers, how many are you talking about and in how many countries?
We have offices in London and New York and affiliates in Dublin, Paris, Hong Kong and Sydney. There are very few places in the world that a photographer working for newscast would not be able to reach.
9) Who are the award-winning photographers that you mention?
Stewart Goldstein, our founder, and Eamonn McCabe, our Creative Director.
10) You obviously use freelance photographers to handle jobs - what quality control processes do you have in place?
Each freelance photographer on the Newscast database has been carefully vetted by Newscast and used on several occasions. Quality control takes the form of individual photographer briefings and follow-up calls before and after the shoot.
11) Eamonn McCabe is your Creative Director - can I speak to him directly and get him to take my pictures?
No. While Eamonn works closely with the newscast team, he is a non-executive and does not take pictures on our behalf. Our head of photography is our founder, Stewart Goldstein.
12) Who else do you have working for you with 'extensive media experience'?
Hamish Paterson, who has over 14 years of experience, both as a journalist and a corporate affairs consultant, Jeremy Probert, who has over 14 years corporate affairs experience and Bob Leaf, a consultant to Newscast who was previously chairman of Burson-Marsteller worldwide.
13) You give figures of 'over 12,000 journalists in 80 countries on five continents' having access to your site - on what do you base these figures?
This is based on our registrations - we have over 25,000 people registered as users of the newscast website, accessing it from points all over the world.
14) What is the distribution and sell-in process, and can you let me know, after you've done it, what the journalists and picture editors actually said?
With AP PhotoExpress, newscast can transmit your pictures directly to more than 1200 media points in the US, including over 950 daily newspapers, websites and TV stations.
Distribution is via ISDN and FTP directly to the picture desks, and is then followed up by personal telephone contact. Yes, if specific comments are made, we are able to let you know what they said.
15) How many journalists actually visit your site each day?
Several thousand across the world. It is, of course, also dependent on what news stories we may have put out on a particular day.
16) How many images do you have on your site?
Some 60,000.
17) What's your 'hit rate' in terms of coverage achieved against pictures taken?
As not all of our photography is for immediate press use, some of it is not for press use at all, and some gets a wealth of exposure above and beyond what was expected of it, it is difficult to give a meaningful number. We do track our performance against other picture libraries and photographic agencies, in terms of numbers of pictures used in UK national media - and we are clear leaders.
18) What about syndication - doesn't this mean that you've no control over how the images are used?
Syndication is a small part of our business and wholly separate from the work that we do on behalf of our clients. Lest there be any doubt, we screen all images that are submitted to our site to ensure that there are no potential issues.
19) How separate are your syndicated and client images?
Completely separate. There can be no confusion.
20) What about client conflict - how can you work for two companies in the same sector?
We are generally not privy to sensitive information about our clients that would be of interest to competitors and thus the issue of client conflict rarely arises. We reassure all our customers that their business is dealt with in a tailored fashion - for example, specific picture ideas are not transferred from one client to another - and in the strictest confidence.
21) Do you have a current client list?
We don't make it available. As examples, we regularly work for British Airways, BAE, BOC, British Gas, Camelot, Allied Domecq and Domino's Pizza.
22) How secure is your site - what's to stop anyone registering and getting access?
The site is very secure. In terms of registrations, each one is checked individually and, as we know our clients value security and confidentiality, we apply very strict criteria to the decision process. This even means, from time to time, that genuine applicants are refused entry until we have sufficient information to validate their access.
23) Everything is hosted on your servers - how secure are they and what plans do you have in place for business continuity/disaster recovery?
All our content is mirrored twice - in layman's terms, if the system fails twice, we could still operate. In the case of our servers, if a server fails, then we have an agreement with our IT provider that the system can be up and running again within two hours.
24) As anyone, in theory, can upload images to your site, how will you control the content and quality of those images and how they are coded and captioned?
All images uploaded by our customers are done so with Newscast's proprietary software, and thus the captioning and coding are consistently uniform.
Because our system allows our customers to upload their own pictures, we cannot be held responsible for content, however we do not believe that any of our clients would upload anything that might be construed as offensive.
All content submitted for syndication is checked by us to ensure that it is properly captioned, not offensive and not deliberately aimed at, or harmful to, our clients. Any such content will not be accepted.
25) With the new Image Library Plus product, as it sits both on intra and internet sites, what's to stop an external user gaining access to my intranet and information that is for internal use only?
It would be impossible for an external user to gain access to anything that you do not want to make public.
26) As the ILP product sits on my intranet, but is hosted by newscast externally, what stops it being a threat to my internal systems, in terms of communication of viruses and malware?
Again, it is impossible for anything to be transmitted to your system through your use of the Newscast system.
27) On what do you base your fee levels, and the cost of items such as uploads and CDs of images?
We base our fees on the individual requirements of the specific job. As a rule of thumb, we charge £500 for a half day's photography, £25 for a CD with a selection of images, £25 per image to upload them to the Newscast site and a further £75 per image per year to host the images.
28) What about video, audio and the other services that you offer - do you have your own facilities and if not, what makes you think that you can get better quality and price than I can myself?
We have very strong relationships with firms specialising in this particular field - firms that we've worked with over very many years. We're confident that the work is both high quality and cost effective.
29) How do you work with PR agencies - surely there must be some rivalry?
No. We offer a specialist service, tailor-made to the needs of our clients - it is not something that forms a big part of a full-service PR consultancy's remit. Often we find that PR agencies are delighted to work with us, as we provide an added dimension to the services they offer.
30) Who are your competitors?
Our service is extremely specialist and tailored to fit the needs of each particular client. Our newest product - Image Library Plus - is, we believe, practically unique. There are a few companies that would claim to offer a competing product, but currently ours is the only one of its exact type.
31) Who owns the copyright on the material you produce for me?
We do, however the image is yours to use - within reason - as you wish.
32) In the case of newscast going bankrupt, or closing its business down - what happens to my image library and its contents?
This is not something we foresee happening, however, in this most unlikely event, we would supply all your pictures to you on disk for you to store.
33) My business is mostly based in different time zones, which means we could call you at any hour of the day or night - how do you handle this?
We have a service agreement with our IT providers that allows for 24 hour a day care and maintenance. In the case of uploading pictures, we can put a delay on them, so that they only become available at the time of your choosing, dependent on your specific time zone.
