Around the world today, paparazzi and celebrity magazine editors are licking their chops: Beyoncé's baby is here — who's gonna get that shot?
Never mind congratulating the Grammy-winning singer and her husband Jay-Z on the birth of their daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, at a New York hospital over the weekend.
In the celebrity baby derby, it's all about commerce: Can the paps get a shot of the kid? And how much will the mags pay for it? Six figures? Seven figures?
After all, remember that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt got a reported eight-figure sum from two celeb mags for exclusive pictures of their twins, Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon, in 2008.
"If it's the picture everyone wants, which is Beyoncé and Jay-Z together with their baby enjoying her for the first time, and it's exclusive, it could be well over $100,000 for first rights in the U.S., and up to half a million for global rights depending on how long it's exclusive," says Gary Morgan, CEO of Splash News, the celebrity photo agency.
Adds entertainment photographer Demis Maryannakis: "Everyone wants to see this baby, and photographers will do whatever they can to get that first photo of Blue, preferably with her parents and especially her mom. They're very hot. Beyoncé is A-list. People are always wondering what she's doing. These are high-demand photos."
Yep, Blue is the hot celebrity babe of the moment. For now.
"This is the be-all, end-all of celebrity spawn — until the next celebrity spawn," says Gillian Sheldon Heckendorf, vice president of programming at Buzz Media. "One trumps the next. But this is different because these are international, global celebrities, a power couple. Everyone wants to see what this baby looks like."
Janice Min, editorial director of The Hollywood Reporter, says the interest is even higher because the couple are so private.
"As someone said to me before we knew it was a girl, this is like the coming of hip-hop Jesus," says Min.
"You can't have two bigger musical stars producing a child. Any kind of personal glimpse you get of them is fascinating."
The couple never sold their wedding photos, nor appeared on the magazine covers, she says. "They're very discrete," Min says. "They don't walk red carpets together. They don't talk about each other much in interviews. The mystery of who they are and how they live their lives propels interest in their child."
Min doubts they'll release photos to a magazine. "I bet they will tweet a photo and that's it," she says.
But if a paparazzo were to get a shot of Blue, what would it fetch? "You're talking a six-figure photo," Min says. "In this land of the Internet and too much celebrity press, it's hard to have anything special anymore, and this would qualify as special."
But is the supply finally exceeding demand? That's what Samir Husni says might finally be happening in the celebrity baby photo biz. He's the director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi's journalism school and an expert on the magazine business.
"We are overcrowded with babies!" he says. "So many celebrities are having babies or adopting babies that the supply is becoming plentiful, so maybe there is not as much demand for pictures of Beyoncé's baby as for Angelina's twins."
But 2008 was a banner year for intense competition for celebrity baby photos — until the recession did away with most of that, Morgan says.
"I don't think right now there's that appetite," Morgan says. "Beyonce and Jay-Z don't have quite the same following (as Angelina and Brad). It's not quite the same apples to apples."
Credits from:http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/story/2012-01-09/beyonce-baby-pictures/52472234/1
