Update: The New York Times says the deal has been completed. Quibi’s 75 shows and documentaries will appear from free on the Roku Channel through 2021. The deal last for seven years.
Roku is negotiating to buy the content catalog of ill-fated short form streaming video service Quibi, the Wall Street Journal claims.
Quibi, which made short, episodic shows for watching on your phone, launched in April 2020 and shut down in October, giving it a shelf-life as short as the shows it produced.
In the words of Ron Burgundy, “That escalated quickly.” A day after short-form video streamer Quibi pivoted from a mobile-only approach to launch an Apple TV app, the beleaguered service announced it will shut down for good.
What lesson can we learn from Quibi’s glitzy, high-profile launch, only to crash and burn six months later? That the slow-but-steady, tortoise-like Apple TV+ strategy looks smarter than ever.
Quibi, the mobile-first streaming video service that launched at the worst possible time, is shutting down, according to The Wall Street Journal. The report came Wednesday, just days after Quibi launched an Apple TV app so subscribers could enjoy its bite-size videos on the big screen.
Apple has hired a former executive who worked for shortform video service Quibi, in addition to Hulu and Disney, to work on growing its video-focused endeavors.
Spotted by the UK’s Telegraph newspaper, Tim Connolly recently updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect his job at Apple. It’s not evident exactly when he started working in the new role.
According to mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower, 4.5 million people have downloaded bite-sized video subscription service Quibi since its highly publicized launch. Of these, around 8% are continuing to use the service.
However, Quibi says that this estimated number of paid subscribers is “incorrect by an order of magnitude.”
Short-form video app Quibi has had a rough start since launching in April, and co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg says there’s only one thing he blames: COVID-19.
“I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus,” Katzenberg told the New York Times in a report published late Monday. Katzenberg said that the initial app downloads have not been “close to what we wanted.” Now Quibi is going to let iPhone users watch it on their TVs to try and make up some of the lost ground.
Quibi, the new smartphone streaming service with 10-minute program, keeps wracking up the downloads and may give viewers a choice to watch its “quick-bite” shows on streaming TV.
CEO Meg Whitman told an interviewer Monday that Quibi has had more than 1.7 million downloads since launching one week ago.
Original streaming video platform Quibi racked up 300,000 downloads on day one, claims a report from leading app analytics platform Sensor Tower.
In a market overloaded with subscription streaming services, Quibi’s twist on the formula is to offer snack-sized shows running 10 minutes or less. These are designed to be watched primarily on mobile.
A new streaming service started Monday — but put down the remote. You won’t find Quibi on your television.
Instead, Quibi – its title a mashup of the words quick and bites – brings short-form entertainment through an app downloaded to an iPhone or iPad. If you are just hearing about Quibi, here’s a quick primer on the new streaming service.
iPhone and iPad users can already sign up to download Quibi, the mobile-only streaming service created by former Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Quibi was quietly posted to the App Store at the end of last month. News that it’s available for pre-order just surfaced today. You won’t be able to start streaming Quibi shows until April, but if you want to make sure you don’t miss the launch you can pre-order it now.
