Betty Sulty-Johnson has experience in sales, project management, and audiovisual and film distribution. She holds a Master's degree in Law, Economics, and Audiovisual Management, specializing in audiovisual marketing and distribution, from INA – Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. After spending 10 years in the UK, she co-founded and directed the first festival dedicated to promoting the work of Black women in front of and behind the camera from 2005 to 2009: the Images of Black Women Film Festival in London.
In France, she worked for France Télévision Distribution, 100% Distribution, and Lagardère Studios in their respective audiovisual distribution departments. She joined the TRACE media group in 2017 and created the audiovisual distribution structure called TRACE Content Distribution, which specializes in the sale of Afro-centric content rights.
How did this distribution division come about within the TRACE group?
The Trace group has been around for 15 years. It is an international media group dedicated to Afro-urban music and entertainment. We have around 22 linear pay channels, radio stations, digital and mobile services. We reach a multicultural audience of around 200 million people across 160 countries worldwide. Trace Content Distribution is the division entirely dedicated to audiovisual distribution, comprising Afro-centric series, films, magazines, and documentaries.
We launched Trace Content Distribution in June 2017. The aim of this entity is to give visibility to producers. When content is very specific and distinctive, when it is integrated into other catalogs, it can quickly become lost or not necessarily promoted. The idea behind the creation of the Trace Content Distribution catalog is to really highlight Afro-centric content productions from Brazil, the Caribbean, the United States, Europe, and African countries. The countries most represented in the catalog in terms of production are Nigeria, because the catalog's positioning aims to have premium Afro-centric content. The vast majority of content comes from Nigeria, followed by Ghana, but also Côte d'Ivoire, a country that is becoming increasingly present.
How big is your catalog?
Today, the catalog consists of nearly 350 hours of content representing the diversity of Afro-centered production. It is also a generalist catalog including films, series, magazines, documentaries, and even animation. This allows us to reach everyone, not just Afro-centered or pan-African channels, because we are primarily trying to ensure that this content, which has its place like any other content, travels.
How would you assess your activity after almost two years?
Our activities have enabled us to reach a large number of customers so far. We must therefore continue to promote African, African-American, and Afro-Brazilian productions in order to reach even more people. In terms of assessment, we quickly realized that we had a role to play upstream of production. In fact, we need to get more involved upstream and not necessarily wait for a product to be finished before marketing it, but rather try to see to what extent we can get involved to help with production, particularly in the context of pre-purchases and to develop co-production, because we have seen a huge evolution in the market over the past two years. It is clear that the market has changed a lot. Our potential buyers have themselves launched into production. Everyone is racing to produce original content, which has changed the market somewhat. For these reasons, we want to position ourselves to meet everyone's needs.
We will continue to diversify our business, to respond as best we can to the needs of our audience and, to do so, to really work on content, whether for linear or non-linear broadcasting.
Trace recently announced the signing of new content sales contracts in Africa. Can you tell us more about that?
At the last Berlinale, we wanted to communicate about the various activities of Trace Content Distribution. To go into more detail, we signed a pre-purchase agreement with TV5Monde, and in particular with their youth channel Tivi5Monde, for seasons 3 and 4 of Gabâo
, an educational animated series. We also have the opportunity to work with Canal+ International on our own production, Brothers With No Game
, an Afro-centric British urban series purchased by Canal+ International, which we are currently dubbing into French. Recently, Showmax, a premium South African platform, also purchased some of our productions and acquisitions.
Trace Content Distribution will also be present at the Séries Mania festival in Lille at the end of March. During this event, we will have the opportunity to pitch one of our co-productions called "BETES 2 SON." We are one of the five finalists selected for the Co-Pro Pitching Sessions competition organized as part of the event, which will allow us to pitch our project to an audience of potential buyers.