March 28, 2024

Quibi, Short-Form Streaming Service, Quickly Shuts Down

One major challenge in trying to orchestrate a sale was the fact that Quibi doesn’t own any of its content. In an attempt to lure the brightest lights in Hollywood, Quibi offered each of its partners sweetheart deals where Quibi would pay both to produce the content and then to license the programming for an exclusive two-year period. After that two-year term ended, Quibi would still be able to show the programming on its app, but the content creator would be allowed to stitch together the short episodes into a television show or a film and resell it to another buyer.

“Katzenberg created something that was beneficial to content creators,” said Michael Goodman, an analyst with Strategy Analytics. “But when push came to shove, the market spoke that chunking up premium content is not what consumers want. They like short-form video: news clips, sports clips, beauty. There is a market for that. It’s just not a premium market. It’s not a new lesson but a lesson that has to be continually taught over and over again.”

Despite its shortcomings, Quibi did win two Emmy Awards last month, for the actors Laurence Fishburne and Jasmine Cephas Jones in the series “#FreeRayshawn” from Mr. Fuqua. Two of the company’s other shows also scored nominations: “Most Dangerous Game” starring Christoph Waltz and Liam Hemsworth, and a reboot of the comedy “Reno 911!”

“We continue to believe that there is an attractive market for premium, short-form content,” Ms. Whitman said in the statement. “Over the coming months we will be working hard to find buyers for these valuable assets who can leverage them to their full potential.”

Hollywood is marveling at the pace of Quibi’s demise. The company’s advertising campaign for its April introduction included a series of commercials featuring characters facing imminent death, whether by quicksand or from a zombie bite. They all had about “a Quibi” before disaster struck. In the end, the company’s life cycle didn’t last much longer.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/business/media/quibi-shutting-down.html

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