This year marks Sabbatical Entertainment’s fifth anniversary. “These have been five remarkable years of cultivating and progressing. It has obviously been a new landscape for everyone, and I think we’ve done a great job of navigating through it, continuing our focus on what we do best: efficiently creating, producing, and distributing high-quality projects and aiming at the needs of our clients. We have grown considerably across the board – our network, infrastructure, capabilities, and reputation,” said Miguel Somoza, CEO, Sabbatical Entertainment.
Now, Sabbatical enters an exciting new stage through a partnership with Emilio Rubio, who, after decades of immense corporate success, joins Sabbatical to elevate and develop it into a premier global force. “
“First and foremost, I have considered Emilio a mentor for two decades. His joining to Sabbatical has evolved that relationship into a friendship for which I’m very grateful. In addition to his experience, talent, discipline, and relationships, he has a consummate understanding of media and technology. There is no one better than Emilio to help me launch Sabbatical into this next phase. For Somoza, they are most importantly adding Rubio’s “wisdom, international high-level network and tremendous track record to an already-successful model, and we think it will generate extraordinary results. Professionally we complement each other well, and we are betting that this will bring exponential growth to Sabbatical.”
“Sabbatical is pioneering a new way of production with both high quality and a unique value proposition. Together with Miguel and his team, and the talent network in multiple countries and languages, we are building an innovative, compelling and profitable content solution for our strategic partners,” Rubio added.
“In terms of positioning, we are focused on building our English slate in the US, and we are focused on increasing our catalog to a considerable volume. We have started well with +300 hours in both Spanish and English, but we are aiming to reach 3,000 hours in the next five years – building on our current genres and expanding our footprint into animation, fiction and audiobooks, podcasts, and more,” added Somoza.
In these five years of operations, Somoza highlighted the original kids series created, produced, and distributed by them such as Planeta de Niños, Naturaleza Humana, and El Mundo es Tuyo. “All are on Univision Networks every weekend. We just renewed those deals and they also acquired the third season of Planeta de Niños. He went on to say El Mundo es Tuyo (The World is Yours) is also being broadcast on the weekends in English as well on CBS O&O affiliates across the country.
Their documentaries on designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Dior, and Yves St. Laurent, which have been broadcast on CNN in Spanish throughout North and South America were well received internationally as well.
As in 2018 Sabbatical’s World Cup sports short-form content has again also been a hit like – Icons, Better Half, Unforgettable, and Postcards – and in traditional formats like The Pitch and Counterattack.“Our 2022 World Cup content just came out of the oven” he pointed out. After last year’s documentary on Pele, the second installment of Under The Lights centers on the polarizing Argentinian star, Maradona “which we just finished using a new recipe with original content.”
For the LA Screenings, the company will be offering for all the family new series such as ADN Animal and El Que Sabe, Sabe; additionally to the 2022 Qatar World Cup’s capsules, and the special Desde las Gradas about Diego Armando Maradona’s life.
“Our productions are alternative, dynamic, highly flexible, and cost-effective. Our business model is ultra-efficient. We will continue to elevate and evolve it with our amazing partner Getty Images, with whom we have a long and fruitful relationship.” he concluded.
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