‘DAILY HABIT’
Many turn to streaming app Quibi for variety of content
Life often moved at a breakneck speed.
For about six weeks, humans have had to slow down a bit. Enter Quibi.
The streaming platform was designed for an audience to consume content while waiting for an appointment or for a coffee.
These days, I, like many others, find myself streaming the content between Zoom and Skype interviews.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, founder and chairman of the board, says the impetus for the platform began about two years ago.
The idea was to merge the best of Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Based in Los Angeles, Quibi is the first entertainment platform built for easy, on-the-go mobile viewing, allowing leading studios and creative talent to tell original stories in an entirely new way.
It launched on April 6, and within two weeks, there were about 3 million downloads of the app.
Quibi offers three categories of content:
Movies in Chapters: Big stories told in chapters that are 7 to 10 minutes long.
Unscripted and Docs: This episodic category is food, fashion, travel, animals, cars, builds, music, sports, comedy, talk, variety, documentary and more, with episodes of 10 minutes or less.
Daily Essentials: Curated daily into 5- to 6-minute quick bites of news, entertainment and inspiration. Quibi’s Daily Essentials will quickly give viewers everything they need to know — and why it matters.
“The way of making the content work in these quick bites, those things have met or exceeded my expectations,” Katzenberg says. “I’ve been building businesses my whole life. I can’t remember being able to say that ever.”
With COVID-19 measures still in place around the country, Katzenberg says, the company is having to navigate its way through the daily changes, just like everyone else.
“This is allowing us to grow and build to become better while we wait for a return to the new normal,” Katzenberg says. “We did go ahead with the launch believing that people would still have in-between moments. The quick hits are well-established behavior patterns.”
Katzenberg says the genius behind Quibi is also letting customers tell what they value most.
“For us, to be diverse and inclusive and actually attempt to have a wide variety of things, it creates an opportunity to learn,” he says.
And watching a movie in chapters is ingenious. For one, when I browsed the films, they were all appealing because no chapter was longer than 10 minutes.
Nearly two hours later, I had finished “The Most Dangerous Game.”
Katzenberg says there are nearly a dozen original films on Quibi.
“Every single one of those has been a top 10 performing show for us,” Katzenberg says. “The music and daily news becomes a daily habit. There’s new content being put up all the time.”
SEND ME YOUR TIPS: If you know of a movie filming in the state, or are curious about one, email film@ ABQjournal.com. Follow me on Twitter @agomezART.