Quibi not quite a status quo fit

• The potential mobile-only challenger to YouTube and Netflix has backers including Alibaba and Goldman Sachs

Quibi, the mobile video start-up that raised a blockbuster $1.8bn before its debut, launched its longexpected challenge to YouTube and Netflix on Monday — despite the worldwide disappearance of the coffeeshop lines and commutes for which its “quick bite” content was developed.

Several top Hollywood studios, and the likes of Alibaba, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, have huge sums riding on the success of the platform, which is led by DreamWorks founder

Jeffrey Katzenberg and former Hewlett Packard chief Meg Whitman. Los Angeles-based Quibi spent hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that a range of content — featuring celebrities such as LeBron James, Chrissy Teigen and Idris Elba — was available from day one on its app.

The rise of YouTube, and latterly TikTok, have demonstrated the huge popularity of short-form mobile content, while Netflix’s growth to almost 170-million subscribers indicates that people are prepared to pay for online video.

But Quibi is the first bigbudget attempt to fuse the two models with slick, professional content designed for on-the-go viewing.

“People are already watching a lot of videos on their phones. You just need to create a different experience, ” Whitman, a veteran of eBay and Disney apart from HP, told the Financial Times in 2019.

After more than a year in development, the app promises “movie-quality” scripted shows, reality TV and documentaries, as well as daily news, including finance, sports and a BBC world affairs show. Quibi will be free to view for the first 90 days, before charging a monthly subscription of up to $7.99.

Quibi has also recruited engineers from tech companies including Snap to make its service more distinctive, for instance by allowing viewers to watch shows with their phones held sideways or upright using its “Turnstyle” mode.

It is unclear how coronavirus, which has disrupted routines and quarantined millions around the world, will influence Quibi’s early popularity. Tom Harrington of Enders Analysis said while the pandemic has driven an upsurge in daytime TV viewing in the UK, especially around news, families are watching primarily on the bigscreen TV, while Quibi is available only on mobile.

Like Hulu, the Hollywoodled TV streaming service that was dubbed “Clown Co” by cynical Silicon Valley bloggers before it premiered in 2008, Quibi has faced considerable scepticism before its arrival. Reviews of its launch-day content slate and the app itself have been mixed.

“I don’t see the evidence for [demand for] this gap” between YouTube-style short clips and traditional TV shows, said Harrington.

Yet Hulu managed to defy the sceptics to become a mainstay of many US households, allowing viewers to catch up on shows made for traditional TV channels, as well as breakout original hits such as The Handmaid’s Tale. Hulu’s former CEO, Jason Kilar, was recently appointed CEO of AT&T-owned WarnerMedia.

The hope for Quibi is that it will be able to piggyback on the wider shift away from traditional broadcast TV and towards mobile entertainment.

“People have done shortform services before, but not at this level or quality,” said Harrington. “Quibi is trying to do something quite different. They won’t know whether it works for some time … and by then they’ve already thrown away hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment in content.” /©