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Media

'Revolutionary' Video-Streaming Service Quibi is Up For Sale Six Months After Launch; Apple, WarnerMedia, and Facebook Have Turned Down the Offer (theinformation.com) 46

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
The Information: Six months after launching his revolutionary video-streaming service, Quibi, Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg is looking for a buyer. So far, he is coming up short [paywalled; alternative source]. Over the past few weeks, Katzenberg has pitched several tech and entertainment executives about buying Quibi, only to be turned down. Among those he approached was Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of internet software and services, and WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar, according to people familiar with the situation. He and his partner in Quibi, former HP CEO Meg Whitman, also made formal presentations to executives at other tech companies, including Fidji Simo, head of the Facebook app, only to get rejected there as well, the people said.

It's possible Katzenberg will still strike a deal. Other companies, including in the gaming industry, could be interested. A spokeswoman for Quibi had no comment. The stakes are high for Katzenberg, a veteran of Hollywood. Quibi was an ambitious idea: a service aimed at people on the go, airing episodes of everything from news programs to dramas with episodes of just a few minutes each. Major talent including Kevin Hart and Chrissy Teigen made shows for the service. Katzenberg raised $1.75 billion to fund the service, including from major entertainment companies including Disney and Warner Bros., Chinese internet giant Alibaba and Madrone Capital, the private investment fund of Walmart heir Rob Walton. But Quibi has struggled to gain traction.
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'Revolutionary' Video-Streaming Service Quibi is Up For Sale Six Months After Launch; Apple, WarnerMedia, and Facebook Have Turn More

'Revolutionary' Video-Streaming Service Quibi is Up For Sale Six Months After Launch; Apple, WarnerMedia, and Facebook Have Turn

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  • ...it started off badly with such a bad name.

    And went downhill from there with a stupid idea.

    • Is it even related to Quibids the absolutely-not-a-scam-we-pinky-swear biding site?

    • Indeed....once I saw Meg was at the helm, I knew it was headed for obscurity.

      Oh wait, you meant the company name...same deal. :)

    • No kidding...why would anyone use a "Q" name for anything, Nobody will ever know how to spell or pronounce it. If you have have to explain your name, you've already failed. "Zune" comes to mind, not a "Q" name, but WTF. But I guess all the good names are either taken or un-defendable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      The idea is worse than you think. A few minute long video with ads at the start and the end, ads get the same airtime as videos. The sales pitch, those sheeple, we will get them to watch more advertisements than content and you can make the content advertisements, mwah hah hah.

      Yeah google struggles with ads, people are sick to death of them. Really truly honestly people should accept reality and the more that is done to curtail advertising, so the brakes will be thrown on overconsumption. The biggest readi

  • It's tough to sell a losing idea. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @03:30PM (#60589286)

    Quibi was the idea that no one wanted to begin with. Then the pandemic happened, meaning even "those one the go" had plenty of time to watch real television if they so desired, and the short program thing just doesn't mean a damn thing to anybody.

    So they have a few months worth of data, and they clearly aren't making a profit. They also don't have any "must watch" programs that people are just dying to see. Has anyone heard positive chatter about a Quibi program? You don't try to sell something that's literally got zero going for it. The name is relatively unknown outside of tech circles. What's to sell?

    • Well, at least it only took six months for these two to realize their idea was crap and it's time to bail.

      An internet startup that doesn't really do anything new and is spearheaded by two people that really have no real insight into what the internet actually is - yeah, what could possibly go wrong?

      And yes, I am saying the former CEO of eBay and HP doesn't actually understand the Internet. She does seem to know about selling products, but so do a lot of other people. And the fact that she was the best Katz

    • I wouldn't give them a dollar for the company. It's just plain a failed venture due to a mediocre idea with poor execution. As you said, nobody is talking positively about it. They did a big advertising push a few weeks back to try to drive awareness and the response I saw was mostly a lot of people laughing at it. There were 3 main issues: 1. As you mentioned, the short program format was not something people were looking for. If people want short programs, there is already youtube and such where the

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      Nah, it's easy.

      You guys just don't understand the new economy, and are stuck in bricks and mortar.

      Pets.com will just do another round of financing and buy it out on its path to global domination . . .

      Just wait until the 21st century hits, we'll show you old fogies that profits and sales aren't important!

      oh, wait . . . :)

      hawk

  • What is the revolutionary part? (Score:4, Informative)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Friday October 09, 2020 @03:32PM (#60589296)
    As far as I can tell the main schtick for Quibi is you could rotate your phone between landscape and portrait and the video would occupy the full screen. That's it. Otherwise it was just another streaming service that fell between the cracks of paid content and free content and couldn't make a mark considering how many established competitors exist in each of those markets..

    • As far as I can tell the main schtick for Quibi is you could rotate your phone between landscape and portrait and the video would occupy the full screen.

      That and the short form content only, which was kind of new so that anything you watched there you knew would be the same length of time...

      The whole rotating thing seemed like a massive gimmick to me, that must have added a ton of cost to video production to do well - and I had read a number of shows did do custom work to make it do something as you were wa

    • Was the video square, or were they simply cutting off the sides or the top+bottom depending on the orientation?

      The first one is nothing special, any moran could have (and has) thought about doing that. The second option is just asking for trouble unless you're 100% sure your content is always within the middle square, in which case you're better off with the first idea anyway.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by b0bby ( 201198 )

        I have no idea, but couldn't they have shot it in both formats right from the get go? That would make editing etc a pain, but it's probably not too hard for shorts like what they were making.

      • It seems like they use a number of techniques. One is they follow the speaking character, and zoom in a little. If there are 2 characters on opposite sides of the screen, they split-screen it. For shows with chyron / framing graphics they seem to be all done in vector format and it actually changes font-sizes / layout positioning to make it completely natural. It's quite impressive actually. I normally hate portrait, but with Quibi whenever I had to hold my phone vertically to do something with my dog or wh

  • "Shut up, Meg" - Peter Griffin

  • > It's possible Katzenberg will still strike a deal.

    Yes, with a US federal bankruptcy court.

    It's pretty tough to sell a business that has no product, no customers, and expenses including celebrity endorsements.
    If he was stupid like Branson, he'd sell part of SKG to fund Quibi... but he's smarter than that.

    E

  • Lol wut? How is a video streaming service that's unique feature is it's limited to short clips ambitious?

  • They decided to waste it on video games.
  • The few shows I've seen from Quibi where decent, but what I really hated was the short runtime per episode. Maybe if they also offered a way to watch those shows uninterrupted every 'few' minutes, I might actually enjoy some shows they had.. it's the constant intro/to be continued which made me hate the platform.

  • Turns out it was already standing room only on the bandwagon.

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