Are we ready for fast-food streams?
I don’t mean to quibble over the finer points of streaming, but new mobile streaming service Quibi was developed with a fast-paced world in mind. Can it flourish in our new slowed-down reality, asks Emily Brookes.
One of the shows I’ve started watching in lockdown is the British series Years and Years, a realist drama set in the near future. It’s funny, from this vantage point: The show posits that the United States launches a nuclear missile in 2024, and that another global financial crisis hits in 2025, among other things.
What it didn’t anticipate, however, is that in 2020 a pandemic would lead to tens of thousands of deaths, half the planet living under lockdown conditions, and major cultural and socio-economic upheaval.
The mid-2020s imagined by Years and Years is one where the new streaming service Quibi, which launched this week, would likely flourish.
It’s the kind of world its mogul owner Jeffrey Katzenberg predicted when he shelled out
$9.45 million to run an ad during last year’s Super Bowl and pumped nearly $3 billion into developing original content for the platform – a world where people ride public transport, line up for coffee, hurry between meetings, and do school runs.
As a short-form content provider on which nothing is longer than 10 minutes, and which can only be watched on mobile devices, Quibi (a portmanteau for ‘‘Quick Bites’’) is perfect for those scenarios. You can catch up on a drama series while riding the bus or witness a home renovation in the time it takes for the barista to make your flat white.
Like the producers of Years and Years, Katzenberg didn’t predict – couldn’t have predicted – the Covid-19 pandemic, and his view of the immediate future was pretty off.
Nonetheless, Quibi launched, as planned, this week.
So, can it thrive in lockdown? And is it any good?
Let’s start with the second question.
All of Quibi’s content is first-run and original, and a good chunk of that $3b must have gone into securing high-profile talent.
You have Reese Witherspoon presenting wildlife documentaries, Chrissy Teigan playing judge in a courtroom reality show, Christoph
Waltz and Liam Hemsworth starring in a thriller, and Chance the Rapper hosting a new version of the Punk’d franchise.
A lot of money has gone into production values, too. The Waltz-Hemsworth vehicle, Most
Dangerous Game, looks as good as any prestige drama you might see on SoHo.
Content on the platform falls into four rough categories. There are scripted series in a range of genres, unscripted shows incorporating reality and factual entertainment titles, documentaries, and news.
As you’d expect, everything moves at a decent