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posted by takyon on Tuesday June 30 2020, @03:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the Quibi-Quibbles dept.

From The Guardian:

Nearly three months ago, in early April, the $1.75bn content experiment known as Quibi lurched from its rocky, much-maligned promotional campaign into full-scale launch. The service offered a tsunami of celebrity-fronted shows segmented into "quick bites" (hence, "qui-bi") of 10 minutes or less – a Joe Jonas talk show, a documentary on LeBron James's I Promise school, a movie with Game of Thrones's Sophie Turner surviving a plane crash, all straight to your phone. At the time, many of us wondered if Quibi could deliver on its central promise – to refashion the style of streaming into "snackable" bites – or if, teetering under the weight of its massive funding and true who's who of talent as the world shut down, it would become shorthand for an expensive mistake.

The service, the brainchild of the DreamWorks Animation cofounder Jeffrey Katzenberg and the former Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman – two billionaires deeply entrenched in Hollywood and Silicon Valley establishment – was "either going to be a huge home run or a massive swing and a miss," Michael Goodman, a media analyst with Strategy Analytics, told the Guardian. Given a string of bad news since its 6 April launch – missed targets, executive departures, Katzenberg singularly blaming the pandemic – and the sunset of its 90-day free trial with millions fewer subscribers than anticipated, the scales seemed decidedly tipped toward swing and miss. But while it's too soon to declare the end of Quibi, it's still worth asking: is the promise of the quick bite already over? And what went so wrong?

Previously: Meg Whitman-Run Streaming Service "Quibi" Launches, Reception Mixed

Related: Fox Could Buy Tubi While NBCUniversal Eyes Vudu


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 30 2020, @04:11AM (2 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday June 30 2020, @04:11AM (#1014378) Journal

    Where to start with this venture? First, they want to move everybody to short-form entertainment, "quick bites," in a time when Amazon Prime and Netflix have conditioned everyone to expect shows that have major story arcs that they can binge through for hours, commercial free. It's easy to notice that a lot of reality-show offerings that have turned up on Netflix don't stick around long, because they were produced for cable channels that expect viewers to be endlessly channel-surfing to escape the relentless commercial breaks, so they lard so many in-show recaps that almost nothing happens from beginning to end; that's maddening to suffer through when you're on Netflix, expecting real plot development, etc. in the time you've allotted to watching. In other words, it's a format mis-match.

    Second, celebrity culture has been sliding off a cliff for a decade now. There are several reasons. Social media has overexposed the celebrities, such that the mystery and allure have been stripped away. Most of them are really not that smart or interesting, so when regular people pick up on that and wonder why in the hell those people have so much more money than they do anyway, it breeds resentment. Also thanks to social media many of the celebrities have taken to being ultra political and being vocal about it, which might get them pats on the back from their intimates or other celebrities, but winds up alienating a huge portion of their fans among the general public. (It's not necessarily about liberal vs. conservative, either, because now they're trying to cancel people like JK Rowling, FFS) Finally, thanks to platforms like YouTube there are a lot more DIY "celebrities" now who have gotten that way because they have actual skills or marketing acumen. In other words, the secret sauce of building a fan base has become known.

    Consequently, thinking that "quick bites" of content sold by (no longer relevant or awe-inspiring) celebrities is gonna be a hit sounds like a dubious project pushed by groups of people who are completely out of touch with where the culture is now.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 30 2020, @04:25AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday June 30 2020, @04:25AM (#1014383) Journal

    It's easy to notice that a lot of reality-show offerings that have turned up on Netflix don't stick around long, because they were produced for cable channels that expect viewers to be endlessly channel-surfing to escape the relentless commercial breaks, so they lard so many in-show recaps that almost nothing happens from beginning to end; that's maddening to suffer through when you're on Netflix, expecting real plot development, etc. in the time you've allotted to watching. In other words, it's a format mis-match.

    They have a purpose: background noise. You just turn on Bob Ross, Gordon Ramsay, or Floor Is Lava when you don't care what's on. Netflix is producing some reality TV content now (and why not since it's cheap) and can alter the format as needed.

    Consequently, thinking that "quick bites" of content sold by (no longer relevant or awe-inspiring) celebrities is gonna be a hit sounds like a dubious project pushed by groups of people who are completely out of touch with where the culture is now.

    YouTube crushed Quibi without it or anyone noticing. Even YouTube's paid service (20 million paying subscribers?) is crushing Quibi.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @05:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2020, @05:02PM (#1014574)

    Just another reason why the Jews are trying to get more control over the internet. It's a threat to their entertainment and propaganda monopolies.