Caters News Agency

About Caters News Agency

Caters News Agency is a Birmingham-based international news, picture and video agency that describes itself as the United Kingdom's oldest independent press agency. Founded in 1927 by Herbert S Cater, the agency has spent nearly a century sourcing and distributing exclusive news and feature stories to newspapers, magazines, online news sites and broadcasters around the world. Today, operating as part of the wider Caters Media Group, it runs offices across four continents, supplies content to clients in more than 40 countries, and sits at the centre of a thriving market for viral video, real-life features and extraordinary photography that powers much of the modern tabloid, digital and broadcast news agenda.

History and Founding

Caters News Agency was founded in 1927 by Herbert S Cater, a former sub-editor who came from a family that ran a building business in Barnstaple in the West Country. Cater had served in the tank corps during the First World War before moving around the country and settling in Birmingham, where he worked as a sub-editor on the Evening Gazette and later its sister paper, the Evening Despatch. Deciding to go it alone, he established the press agency that would carry his name, building a business on the traditional model of the British provincial news agency: gathering local news, court stories and exclusive pictures and selling them on to national and regional newspapers.

The claim that Caters is the UK's oldest independent press agency is central to its identity, and the company's own materials repeat it proudly. Over the decades the agency expanded well beyond its Birmingham roots. A landmark moment in its corporate history was the creation of a United States operation, Caters News Agency Inc, based on Broadway in New York, which gave the agency a permanent foothold in the American market and a base from which to syndicate British-originated content to US publishers and to source American stories for the rest of the world. The agency also developed a sister relationship with Mercury Press in Liverpool, another long-established regional agency, and expanded into India, Australia and Africa.

Company records show that the modern limited company behind the agency, Caters News Agency Ltd, is registered in the United Kingdom, while trade directories record its headquarters at The Drop Forge, 6-10 Hockley Street, Birmingham. As the media landscape shifted from print to digital, Caters pivoted decisively toward the business it is best known for today: discovering and licensing remarkable human-interest stories, viral videos and striking photographs sourced from the public, and selling them to the world's media. The founding of the Caters Media Group umbrella, and the launch of contributor platforms such as Caters Clips, marked the company's transformation from a classic provincial press agency into a global multimedia content business with seven offices spanning four continents.

What the Agency Does

At its core, Caters is an international news, picture and video agency that sources and distributes exclusive news and feature stories. Its editorial bread and butter is what the industry calls "real life" content: extraordinary human-interest tales, remarkable animal stories, record-breaking feats, wedding and lifestyle features, and the kind of feelgood or bizarre stories that dominate tabloid feature pages and social-media feeds. Alongside words, the agency supplies photographs and video clips, and it actively solicits material from members of the public through its "collaborate with us" and Caters Clips contributor platforms.

The business model is that of a classic syndication agency updated for the internet age. Contributors — ordinary people who have captured remarkable footage or lived remarkable stories — submit their material to Caters. The agency's journalists verify the stories, write them up, clear the rights and then license the finished packages to media clients around the world. The contributor shares in the revenue generated by licensing their material, creating a supply chain that rewards the public for newsworthy content while giving publishers a steady stream of rights-cleared, legally safe exclusive material.

Video has become an increasingly central part of the operation. Viral clips — dashcam rescues, animal antics, extreme stunts, heartwarming reunions — are licensed to television broadcasters, online publishers and social-media channels, while the agency's stills archive feeds the daily feature pages of newspapers and magazines. The agency also offers video editing and production services, extending its offering beyond pure newsgathering into content creation for brands and advertisers.

Ownership and Organization

Caters News Agency Ltd is a privately held British company headquartered at The Drop Forge, 6-10 Hockley Street, Birmingham, in the city's historic Jewellery Quarter area. It operates as part of the Caters Media Group, the trading umbrella that encompasses the agency's offices in the United Kingdom, the United States, India and Australia, together with its sister agency Mercury Press in Liverpool. The group's own materials describe a team of more than 50 staff working across the Birmingham headquarters, the Broadway-based New York bureau and its other international outposts, while business databases have estimated the group at around 80 employees with revenues in the tens of millions of dollars.

The organization is structured around its news desks — picture, video and text — with dedicated teams for sourcing contributor content, verifying and writing stories, and licensing finished material to clients. The New York office functions as the American bureau, selling content into the vast US media market and sourcing American stories for global distribution. The Liverpool-based Mercury Press operates as a sister agency within the group, preserving its own regional identity while sharing the group's distribution infrastructure. The international spread across four continents allows the agency to operate around the clock, an important advantage in the always-on news cycle of digital publishing.

Client Base and Distribution

Caters describes itself as a supplier of content to news outlets worldwide, and its distribution reach is genuinely global. The Caters Media Group states that its viral videos, images and trending stories help power more than 1,500 global clients, including web and social publishers, television and OTT platforms, newspapers and magazines. The agency's content is published and broadcast daily across national and international newspapers and magazines, websites and television stations around the world, with its news feed subscribed to by leading media names in several countries.

The client base spans the full spectrum of modern media. British national newspapers — particularly the tabloids and mid-market titles that rely heavily on human-interest features — are core customers, as are magazines in the women's weekly and real-life sectors. Online news sites and digital publishers take Caters material for its proven ability to attract clicks and social shares, while broadcasters license video clips for use in news bulletins, magazine shows and light-entertainment programming. The agency supplies content to more than 40 countries, and its online archive gives clients access to millions of images and digital assets for reuse.

Distribution today is overwhelmingly digital. Clients access content through the agency's online platforms and direct feeds, with pictures, video and copy delivered in formats ready for publication on web, social, print and broadcast. The contributor platforms, meanwhile, have created a two-way relationship with the public: members of the public can submit stories, pictures and video directly, and the agency handles the editorial, legal and commercial work of turning them into licensable products.

Coverage Strengths

Caters' greatest coverage strength is its dominance of the human-interest and "real life" feature market. The agency has an unrivalled track record of finding and packaging stories about ordinary people living extraordinary lives: record breakers, medical marvels, animal rescues, extreme transformations, unusual families and eccentric hobbies. This is content that travels across borders effortlessly, because a remarkable story from a small town in England or a village in India resonates with readers everywhere.

Photography and video are the agency's second great strength. In an era when publishers prize visual content above all else, Caters' ability to source striking, rights-cleared imagery — from wildlife photography to viral smartphone footage — gives it a durable competitive advantage over agencies that deal only in words. The agency's contributors function as a vast, decentralized network of stringers, capturing moments that no staff photographer could ever be in position to catch.

The agency is also strong in celebrity-adjacent and entertainment content, lifestyle features and seasonal stories — the dependable, evergreen material that fills feature pages year-round. Its international offices mean it can source this material from multiple continents, giving clients a constant flow of fresh content regardless of time zone.

Digital and Technology

Technology is central to how Caters operates. The agency runs an extensive online archive giving clients access to millions of images and digital assets, and its contributor platforms — including Caters Clips — allow members of the public to upload stories, pictures and video directly from their phones. This crowdsourced supply model, which the agency was developing years before "user-generated content" became an industry buzzword, is supported by editorial workflows that verify, write up and clear each submission before it is licensed.

The company's own materials emphasize "cutting edge technology" and "slick business practices" as the foundation of its current global position. Digital delivery systems push finished stories, pictures and video to clients in real time, while the agency's websites and social-media channels serve as both shop windows and sourcing tools, surfacing the most shareable content to editors and the public alike. The move into video editing and production services further reflects the agency's recognition that its future lies as much in creating content as in gathering it.

Notable Stories and Impact

Rather than single scoops, Caters' impact is measured in the sheer volume and reach of the stories it places. The agency's material appears daily in national and international newspapers and magazines, on websites and on television around the world, and its viral videos regularly accumulate millions of views across social platforms. Stories sourced by Caters — from extraordinary medical cases to animal rescues to record-breaking achievements — routinely become global talking points, picked up by publishers on several continents within hours of release.

The agency's contributor model has also had a democratizing effect on the news business. By sharing licensing revenue with the members of the public who capture newsworthy moments, Caters created a functioning marketplace for citizen journalism long before smartphones made everyone a potential cameraperson. For many contributors, a viral Caters story has been a life-changing source of income; for publishers, the model provides a legally watertight supply of exclusive content at a time when the provenance of viral material is a constant concern.

The agency's longevity is itself a notable achievement. To have survived from 1927 — through the decline of the evening newspaper, the rise of television, the arrival of the internet and the social-media revolution — while growing from a Birmingham press agency into a four-continent media group, is a rare feat in an industry littered with the names of agencies that failed to adapt.

Industry Role

Within the British press-agency ecosystem, Caters occupies a distinctive position. It is one of a handful of large independent agencies — alongside the likes of SWNS and Mercury Press — that supply the national press with the real-life features, pictures and video on which much of popular journalism depends. Its status as the UK's oldest independent press agency gives it a heritage that few rivals can match, and its scale sets it apart from the many smaller regional agencies that serve local markets.

The agency also plays an important economic role in the wider media industry. By creating a professional market for user-generated content, it has helped establish the norms — verification, rights clearance, revenue sharing — under which the entire viral-content industry now operates. Its relationships with more than 1,500 clients make it one of the most widely used content suppliers in British popular journalism, and its international offices give it a reach that extends far beyond the UK market.

Recent Developments

In recent years Caters has continued to evolve its business toward video and global distribution. The Caters Media Group branding reflects the company's self-image as a multimedia agency rather than a traditional press agency, and its public materials emphasize its seven offices across four continents and its trusted reputation built over more than 90 years in the media business. The contributor platforms remain a central focus, with the agency actively recruiting members of the public to submit stories, pictures and video through its websites.

The agency's New York bureau continues to anchor its American operations from its Broadway base, while the Birmingham headquarters at The Drop Forge on Hockley Street remains the heart of the business. With its archive of millions of images and digital assets, its network of contributors and its client base of more than 1,500 publishers and broadcasters, Caters enters its second century as one of the most durable and adaptable names in British newsgathering — a 1927 press agency that reinvented itself for the age of the viral video.