It may have disappointed with its launch-day downloads but the Quibi VOD service is claiming to have ended its first week on a strong footing and is planning to break out of its initial mobile-only form.
Founded by former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and ex HP and eBay CEO Meg Whitman, the millennial-focussed short-form premium mobile TV streaming service finally arrived on 6 April but to somewhat underwhelming effect with, according to preliminary estimates from Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence platform, with only just around 300,000 mobile users in the US and Canada installing the app.
This came after months of build-up and no little hype and in March 2020 Quibi closed a second round of financing worth $750 million, bringing its total investment to $1.75 billion, promising to spend in its first year over $600 million on content covering scripted and original entertainment, sports and news.
Quibi has to date inked deals with the likes of NBCUniversal, and its Spanish-speaking subsidiary Telemundo, The Weather Channel and ESPN and offers shows starring Liam Hemsworth, Jennifer Lopez, Kevin Hart, Chrissy Teigen, and Kaitlin Olson. Its functions also includes Turnstile which allows videos to run across an entire mobile screen whether in portrait and landscape mode. This is designed to enable producers to make more creative decisions regarding characterisation.
The service has two basic business models — $8-a-month ad-free subscription option and $5-a-month option with ads — and is said to need about 12 million subscribers to break even.
Just before week one of the service’s life had ended, in an interview with Bloomberg Television CEO Whitman claimed that about 1.7 million people has now downloaded the app since launch and that furthermore had already generated $150 million in advertising revenue by fully selling out its space.
Intriguingly, Whitman suggested that within six months’ time, Quibi could well be available on TV screens in order to appeal to millions of people social distancing at home that are bingeing on SVOD services such as Netflix and for whom a mobile-only service was said to be limiting.
This came after months of build-up and no little hype and in March 2020 Quibi closed a second round of financing worth $750 million, bringing its total investment to $1.75 billion, promising to spend in its first year over $600 million on content covering scripted and original entertainment, sports and news.
Quibi has to date inked deals with the likes of NBCUniversal, and its Spanish-speaking subsidiary Telemundo, The Weather Channel and ESPN and offers shows starring Liam Hemsworth, Jennifer Lopez, Kevin Hart, Chrissy Teigen, and Kaitlin Olson. Its functions also includes Turnstile which allows videos to run across an entire mobile screen whether in portrait and landscape mode. This is designed to enable producers to make more creative decisions regarding characterisation.
The service has two basic business models — $8-a-month ad-free subscription option and $5-a-month option with ads — and is said to need about 12 million subscribers to break even.
Just before week one of the service’s life had ended, in an interview with Bloomberg Television CEO Whitman claimed that about 1.7 million people has now downloaded the app since launch and that furthermore had already generated $150 million in advertising revenue by fully selling out its space.
Intriguingly, Whitman suggested that within six months’ time, Quibi could well be available on TV screens in order to appeal to millions of people social distancing at home that are bingeing on SVOD services such as Netflix and for whom a mobile-only service was said to be limiting.
