Quibi is shutting down is what’s described as “a crash landing for a once-highflying entertainment startup that raised $1.75 billion in capital,” by The Wall Street Journal which cites those ever-present “people familiar with the matter.”
Quibi logoThe streaming service has been plagued with problems since it launched in April, facing lower-than-expected viewership, disappointing download numbers and a lawsuit from a well-capitalized foe.
On Wednesday, Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg called investors to tell them he is shutting the service down, some of the people said.
Quibi’s shutdown marks a disappointing turn of events for Mr. Katzenberg, who pitched the streaming service as a revolutionary new entrant to the video-streaming wars.
The service served up shows in 5-minute to 10-minute “chapters” formatted to fit a smartphone screen, targeting subscribers who wanted entertainment in a hurry.
Mr. Katzenberg and Chief Executive Meg Whitman raised about $1.75 billion from high-profile investors including Walt Disney Co. , NBCUniversal and AT&T Inc.’s WarnerMedia. The service streamed original shows with stars such as Anna Kendrick, Christoph Waltz and Liam Hemsworth, which garnered mixed reviews.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in June, “So, why is the coronavirus to blame? Fewer bus/train commuters made for a smaller audience for bite-size videos, we’d guess. Still, if your video service couldn’t build an audience from a millions of cooped up people hungry for something, anything, to pass the time, perhaps it wasn’t that compelling in the first place.”
She succeeded at eBay, was OK at HP, failed in her CA senate race as an extremist Republican, and failed and quit at her only startup initiative, Quibi, which, I think, was a good concept for others, not me. Such a format should likely be revived although people already have access to short features in the form of movie clips on YouTube.
The major problem was that there was NO access to the service except from mobile devices. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I’m at home, I tend to use my desktop computer for media viewing (if not my AppleTV – and it wasn’t on AppleTV either), not my iPhone.
MDN nails the Take.
No one wants to watch video in a vertical format.
Quibi = a solution for a problem no one had to begin with.
These are money-laundering schemes, what do you expect from Pedowood.
Just a name like “Quibi” doesn’t exude success.
Neither does “Google”
The logo looks like a toilet seat 🙁
She succeeded at eBay, was OK at HP, failed in her CA senate race as an extremist Republican, and failed and quit at her only startup initiative, Quibi, which, I think, was a good concept for others, not me. Such a format should likely be revived although people already have access to short features in the form of movie clips on YouTube.
The major problem was that there was NO access to the service except from mobile devices. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I’m at home, I tend to use my desktop computer for media viewing (if not my AppleTV – and it wasn’t on AppleTV either), not my iPhone.