Splash News

About Splash News

Splash News is an entertainment news agency specialising in candid celebrity photography and video, supplying print, online and broadcast media outlets around the world. Founded in 1990 and headquartered in London, the company built one of the largest contributor-led networks in celebrity journalism, with thousands of photographers across the globe feeding images and footage to clients including major newspapers, magazines, broadcasters and digital publishers. Its corporate history reads like a chronicle of the modern media business itself: acquired by the Bill Gates-owned Corbis in 2011, sold to SilverHub Media in 2016, forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2021, and finally acquired by the stock-media giant Shutterstock in May 2022.

History and Founding

Splash News was founded in 1990 as an entertainment news agency devoted to candid celebrity photography and video content. From its London base, the company developed a global network of contributors — freelance photographers positioned to capture celebrities in unguarded, real-life moments — and built offices in London, New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Berlin. The agency's proposition was the classic paparazzi model professionalised: rather than relying on chance encounters, Splash maintained a worldwide web of photographers who could reliably deliver exclusive images of stars going about their daily lives.

The company's first major corporate milestone came in 2011, when Corbis — the digital image company owned by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, then operating as the Branded Entertainment Network — acquired Splash News for an undisclosed sum. The deal brought Splash into one of the world's largest image-licensing businesses and reflected the value that established media companies placed on exclusive celebrity content in the early social-media era.

In 2016, the Branded Entertainment Network sold Splash News to the UK company SilverHub Media, a deal that closed in December of that year and was presented as part of SilverHub's strategy to reinvigorate celebrity, sports and entertainment content. But the business faced severe headwinds: in 2021, the company was forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. SilverHub Media itself went into administration, and Splash was saved through a management buyout by the team behind the agency. In May 2022, Shutterstock — the global stock photography and media platform — announced the acquisition of Splash News, bringing the celebrity agency into one of the world's largest content marketplaces.

What the Agency Does

Splash News provides candid celebrity photography and video content for the entertainment market, supplying print, online and broadcast media outlets. The agency's photographers capture celebrities in everyday situations — arriving at airports, leaving restaurants, attending events, walking with their families — and the resulting images and video clips are licensed to publishers within hours. Speed is essential: an exclusive set of pictures can command premium prices only until rival agencies or the celebrities' own social-media accounts publish competing material.

The company describes itself as the largest contributor-led celebrity agency in the world, with more than two decades of experience. Its network of over 4,000 photographers globally gives it coverage across the key celebrity centres of Los Angeles, New York, Miami, London and beyond. The agency also built a substantial video operation: at one point it was generating between 20 and 60 video clips a day, and it acquired the Kaplan archive — some 4,000 videos compiled since 1994 — to add depth to its footage library.

Beyond day-to-day paparazzi coverage, Splash has handled set-piece celebrity stories, red-carpet events and major entertainment news events, providing both stills and video to its clients. The agency's archive of celebrity imagery represents a significant commercial asset in its own right, licensable for retrospective features, documentaries and anniversary coverage.

Ownership and Organization

Splash News is currently a subsidiary of Shutterstock, which acquired the company in May 2022. The acquisition brought Splash's celebrity content operation and its global photographer network into Shutterstock's vast licensing ecosystem, alongside the company's stock photography, footage and music businesses. The agency continues to operate under the Splash News brand from its London headquarters, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Berlin.

The road to Shutterstock ownership was turbulent. After the 2011 acquisition by Corbis (the Branded Entertainment Network), the agency was sold to SilverHub Media in 2016. When SilverHub went into administration, Splash itself entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2021 before being rescued in a management buyout by the team that had founded the celebrity photo operation. At an earlier stage, the investment firm Rcapital was the owner of the agency — a period during which Rcapital also moved to buy the UK regional newspaper group Archant in 2020. The Shutterstock acquisition finally gave the business the backing of a large, stable, publicly traded parent.

Client Base and Distribution

Splash News delivers image and video content to an A-list of media brands. Its clients have included E! News, the Daily Mail, News UK, TMZ, Reach, People magazine, Dow Jones and many others — spanning celebrity news outlets, national newspapers, magazines, broadcasters and digital publishers on both sides of the Atlantic. The agency's material appears daily in the world's leading tabloids, entertainment websites and television entertainment-news programmes.

Distribution is built for speed. Photographers file images and video directly to the agency's desks, which edit, caption and clear the material before pushing it to clients through digital delivery systems. In the celebrity market, minutes matter: the first agency to deliver a clean, exclusive set of pictures of a major star moment wins the sale. Splash's global network and round-the-clock desks in London and the United States allow it to serve clients across time zones, and its archive provides a deep back catalogue for clients needing historical celebrity imagery.

Coverage Strengths

Splash's core strength is the scale and reliability of its contributor network. With more than 4,000 photographers worldwide and decades of experience, the agency can credibly claim to be the largest contributor-led celebrity agency in the world. That network gives it presence in every major celebrity hub — Los Angeles, New York, Miami, London — and the ability to respond rapidly when a star is spotted.

A second strength is exclusivity. The agency has a long record of landing genuinely exclusive celebrity images — the kind of pictures that drive front pages and homepage traffic. Its history includes the first images of Michael Jackson's first child, coverage of Tiger Woods' mistress at the height of that scandal, Sandra Bullock's first public appearance with her newly adopted son, and the funeral of Anna Nicole Smith in 2007, where Splash was the only agency allowed inside the church during the service in the Bahamas. Almost all of the money made from sales of the funeral images and video was donated to the daughter of Anna Nicole Smith and Larry Birkhead.

The agency has also demonstrated range beyond pure celebrity fare, providing coverage of the 2010 Copiapó mining accident in Chile — the dramatic rescue of 33 trapped miners that became one of the biggest news stories of the decade. Its video operation, producing dozens of clips daily, and its acquired archives give it depth in moving images as well as stills.

Digital and Technology

Technology underpins Splash's ability to move images from street to screen in minutes. The agency's digital filing and distribution systems allow its thousands of contributors to upload pictures and video from the field, with picture desks editing, captioning and clearing material for immediate licensing. The acquisition of the Kaplan archive — 4,000 videos compiled since 1994 — was followed by a major digitisation effort to keyword and upload the tapes to the agency's video platform, reflecting the industry's recognition that video was becoming as important as stills.

Under Shutterstock ownership, Splash's content benefits from integration with one of the world's most sophisticated stock-media platforms, with advanced search, metadata and e-commerce infrastructure. The agency maintains an active social-media presence for contributor recruitment and brand visibility, and its website serves as both a shop window for clients and a point of contact for its photographer network.

Notable Stories and Impact

Splash News has been credited with a string of era-defining celebrity stories. The first images of Michael Jackson's first child were a global exclusive of enormous commercial value. The agency's coverage of the Tiger Woods infidelity scandal — including images of his mistress — fed one of the biggest celebrity news stories of the 2000s. Sandra Bullock's first public appearance with her newly adopted son was another major exclusive, handled with the sensitivity such moments require.

The agency's coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death and funeral in 2007 stands out both journalistically and ethically: Splash was the only agency permitted inside the church for the funeral service in the Bahamas, and almost all proceeds from the sale of the images and video were donated to Smith's young daughter. The episode demonstrated that even in the hard-nosed business of celebrity photography, agencies could act with a sense of responsibility.

Beyond individual scoops, Splash's corporate journey — from independent agency to Corbis subsidiary to SilverHub ownership to bankruptcy to Shutterstock — mirrors the wider turbulence of the image-licensing industry over three decades, as celebrity content moved from print exclusives to an always-on digital free-for-all. The agency's survival through that turbulence, and its emergence under Shutterstock ownership, is itself a notable achievement.

Industry Role

Within the entertainment-news industry, Splash News has long been one of the defining agencies of the paparazzi era. Alongside rivals, it professionalised the business of candid celebrity photography, turning what had been a haphazard trade into a global, technology-driven content operation. Its network model — thousands of contributors rather than a small staff — prefigured the gig-economy structures that now dominate much of media production.

The agency has also been at the centre of industry debates about the ethics and economics of celebrity coverage: the tension between the public's appetite for star images and the privacy of the people photographed, and the question of how photographers are paid as picture prices have fallen. Its passage through bankruptcy in 2021 was widely seen as symptomatic of the pressures facing the entire sector, as social media gave celebrities direct control over their own images and squeezed the market for paparazzi exclusives.

Recent Developments

The May 2022 acquisition by Shutterstock was the most significant recent development in Splash's history, giving the agency the financial stability and technological platform of a global content giant. Under Shutterstock, Splash continues to operate its celebrity newsgathering operation from London, New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Berlin, feeding its network's images and video into Shutterstock's licensing ecosystem and its established roster of media clients.

The deal also reflected Shutterstock's strategic interest in entertainment and editorial content as a growth area alongside its core stock business. For Splash, it marked the end of a turbulent chapter — Corbis, SilverHub, administration, Chapter 11, management buyout — and the beginning of a new one as part of one of the world's largest media-content companies. More than three decades after its 1990 founding, Splash News remains one of the most recognised names in celebrity journalism.