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When Quibi (pronounced “kwih-BEE”) was introduced, the
masterminds behind it had us right where they wanted:
trapped at home, with little to do but obsessively clean and
watchhoursofcontent.
Yet,aftera weekoftesting,it’sa littlehardformetotell
howI’llslottheapp’shundredsofroughlyseven-minute epi-
sodes into my life when things return to normal. Certainly not
at night, when the glow of the jumbo television screen lures
me in. And not during the one- or two-minute spare windows
in the day I use to check Facebook. I’ll be honest. Quibi-ing
is what I want to do when work feels tedious—and I know my
boss isn’t paying attention.
The mobile-only app has raised almost $2 billion from the
world’s biggest media companies to inundate customers with
star-studded Quibis. (Liam Hemsworth, Chrissy Teigen, and
LeBron James each headline a program.) Quibi Holdings LLC’s
founder, Hollywood veteran Jeffrey Katzenberg, says the com-
pany will churn out 175 shows in its first year. All of them will
be told in segments of no longer than 10 minutes and can be
viewed both horizontally and vertically.
The platform has been touted as a big risk and a revolution, ILLUSTRATIONBYJACIKESSLERLUBLINERCRITIC BloombergPursuits April 20, 2020Quibi, the $2 billion startup,
has but a moment to
capture hearts and eyeballs
By Kelly GilblomThe Short-
Attention-Span
Tango
buttheexperienceofit feelsinevitable.We’reallalready
addictedtoourphones,fillingemptyexpansesoftime—once
thedominionofourimaginations—with podcasts, listicles,
and TikToks. So the argument for Quibi’s existence sounds
a lot like the argument for legalizing pot: People are already
getting a fix, so the experts may as well provide it.
The shows on the service range from grating to pretty good.
In standout series Survive, Sophie Turner convincingly depicts
a young woman tortured by suicidal thoughts, only to find her-
self fighting for her life after a plane crash. In standout-for-the-
wrong-reasons series Murder House Flip, designers renovate
a house where a real serial killer buried her victims, treating
the homicides as an entertaining twist.
Whether Quibi is the best Hollywood can do doesn’t really
matter. The service will certainly be improved. Katzenberg
says the company is going to respond to data about who clicks
on what and when, and relatively quickly. For example, he
wants to offer one episode of a show per day but will release
themallatonceif peopleseemtopreferbingeing.
Whatmattersmoreis thatsomeoneseta newfinancialbar,
spendingasmuchas$125,000a minuteforhigh-quality mobile
videos. First it was the theater, then the television screen, and
now phones are the domain of the world’s best entertainers.
Several of the shows—like Hemsworth’s Most Dangerous Game—
are as good as what you can get on Netflix, which dominated
Oscar and Golden Globe nominations this year.
I can tell you that spending some real time with the app
changed my standards more than my habits. I’m a millen-
nial, so I’m used to wasting time scrolling through videos.
I’m still doing that, but now the cinematography is nice, and
they have well-thought-out stories and messages that occa-
sionally pose an intellectual challenge.
Initial reviews argued that Quibi suffers from not being able
to appear on a TV or laptop, and a week after launch, Chief
Executive Officer Meg Whitman told Bloomberg TV that she
hopes to roll out TV viewing within six months. But I found
it competes more with Instagram, which I peruse during my
commute and those illicit work breaks. The quality of the app’s
programming made me realize what I really want from social
media is just content from my good friends. The rest is simply
killing time. The main frustration with Quibi is that the shows
are good enough that, unlike with Facebook content, I don’t
want to experience them alone. The app does have a button to
share, but it’s not the same. I also tried watching an episode of
Dishmantled, where blindfolded chefs must determine the con-
tents of a meal that’s blasted at their face through a cannon,
with my husband, who was seated next to me. I kept clumsily
dropping the phone, which ruined the effect.
To sustain itself, Quibi will probably need about 12 mil-
lion subscribers—it garnered 1.7 million in its first week—with
75% paying the $5-a-month subscription fee with ads (it’s $8 a
month without ads). In the midst of epic unemployment, that
feels steep. I’m fortunate to have a job, and I kinda like Quibi,
yet I’m still not sure if I’ll stick with it. But heck, if I don’t, I’d
miss it a lot more than all those celebrities singing Imagine. <BW>