Quibi, the short form streaming platform that focuses on mobile devices, is shutting down after just six months of operation, as confirmed by its founders.
In a published post on blogging platform Medium, founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman wrote an open letter to "employees, investors, and partners who believed in Quibi and made this business possible."
Officially launched on April 6, 2020, the Wall Street Journal first reported that the streaming platform would shut down on October 21, 2020, marking one of the shortest-lived streaming services so far.
PARK CITY, UTAH - JANUARY 24: Jeffrey Katzenberg demonstrates Quibi's Turnstyle technology at Sundance 2020 on January 24, 2020, in Park City, Utah.
"The Result Was Not What Any of Us Wanted"
"We started with the idea to create the next generation of storytelling and because of you, we were able to create and deliver the best version of what we imagined Quibi to be," the letter read. Katzenberg and Whitman note that with "an incredibly heavy heart," they confirm the news of the shutdown and are looking to sell their content as well as their technology assets.
"Our failure was not for lack of trying; we've considered and exhausted every option available to us," the letter explained.
Upon its launch, it drew some instantly-recognizable names in the entertainment industry and was poised to revolutionize content creation in the Information Age. However, there has been a variety of reasons that could have contributed to Quibi's short run.
Chaim Gartenberg, writing for The Verge, said that Quibi' was launched as a mobile-only streaming platform in the middle of the global coronavirus pandemic when its potential users were restrained by stay-at-home orders. Quibi also suffered from the "lack of any real breakout content" to draw more users and subscribers.
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Also, Quibi was in a market with notoriously fierce competition, vying for a share of subscribers against Google's YouTube and ByteDance's TikTok, as well as a number of other platforms.
In the letter, the short-lived service explains that its failure might be from one of two reasons. One is that their idea "itself wasn't strong enough to justify a standalone streaming service' or simply because of ill timing, adding that it was most likely a combination of both.
A Promising Option in the Streaming Platform
Quibi was first founded in August 2018 as NewTV, being renamed later in October 2018. The service, which was aimed primarily for younger users, introduced 10-minute episodes it called "quick bites." In the same year before its official launch, Katzenberg managed to raise $1 billion in investments - mostly from major Hollywood film studios, entertainment and financial industries including The Walt Disney Company, Sony Pictures, Time Warner, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and more.
It was officially launched in April, first available in North America, as well as an ad-free version available in Australia and European territories - the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany.
News outlets reported Quibi crossing 1.7 million downloads in its first week. Unfortunately, it also saw a rapid decline, dropping from top 50 free apps in the Apple Store after its first week. By May, 1.3 million remained active users of the app, with Katzenberg acknowledging that the numbers were way off from their target, attributing the problem to the coronavirus.
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