Posts for 'Quibi'

I’m pleased to present the 535th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.  

By far the biggest story of the week was Quibi’s quick demise. On today’s podcast Colin and I discuss where Quibi went wrong in its pricing, content and audience strategies and what it might have done differently. It’s far from clear if these steps would have made a difference to Quibi’s ultimate outcome, but we both think they would have improved its odds of success.

We also ponder the question, with the list of failures growing, is it possible to succeed with a pure play mobile video startup?
 
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Quibi and Snap appear to be two companies moving in opposite directions in mobile video. Quibi, the high-profile, well-funded startup, has belatedly broadened its scope beyond mobile, enabling its app on Fire TV, Apple TV and Android TV, a recognition that a pure-play mobile video offering from scratch is unsustainable, especially during Covid.

The Information also reported yesterday that Quibi has unsuccessfully shopped its content catalog to NBCU and Facebook and that founder Jeffrey Katzenberg has told people he may have to shut down the company. This follows a WSJ report from late September that Quibi was seeking a buyer for the whole company. Previous reports revealed that initial advertisers were seeking to revamp their deals, due to smaller audiences and lagging app downloads.

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My longtime podcast colleague Colin Dixon at nScreenMedia and I are trying out a format for a second podcast, which we’re calling “Behind My Thinking.” The idea is that we would ask each other a few questions about a post we each wrote recently, to get share a little more insight on why the topic was important and other takeaways - in other words, behind each of our thinking.

On this episode Colin first asks me about my post about Extreme Reach’s data showing connected TV ad impressions share has varied widely over the past few months. Then we flip to me asking Colin more about his post on why he thinks Covid-19 in an unlikely culprit for Quibi’s weak start.

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I’m pleased to present the 509th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. We wish all our listeners well and hope that everyone is staying healthy.

First up this week, we discuss the success of Disney+ which now has 50 million paid subscribers, less than 5 months since launch. Both Colin and are impressed with the growth, which has been remarkably steady on an average daily basis. Disney+ is clearly way ahead of its forecast of 60-90 million subscribers in September, 2024. Colin thinks there may have been an “under-promise, over-deliver” approach in forecasting. Regardless, Disney+ looks like it’s in a strong position.

We then turn our attention to Quibi, which launched earlier this week. We both like the app and think it’s quite functional. We also recognize that we’re not in the target audience, so the content isn’t necessarily for us. The big issues are that Quibi needs to be on connected TVs to give viewers more flexibility, and also a tier of free content (past the 90-day trial), to serve as an on-ramp for subscriber acquisition. Quibi is competing against an abundance of free alternatives; while it will get many trial sign-ups, conversion to paid will be the key challenge.

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As stay at home guidelines remain in place, it seems like more and more free TV and video are being made available, spanning the short and long ends of the tail (meaning super-premium through user-generated) - and everything in between. Not only does this create more choices for viewers, which will be welcomed, it also means more competition for subscription video services which were already vulnerable to belt-tightening. And for free TV/video that is ad-supported, it means more inventory and choices for advertisers.

Here’s what’s caught my eye just in the past week:

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I’m pleased to present the 496th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

It’s a new year and a new decade, and on today’s podcast we discuss Quibi, the mobile video provider which, having raised $1.4 billion, is one of the industry’s most closely followed startups.

But as we discuss, Quibi’s go-to-market strategy seems at odds with the realities of the broader video industry, and mobile video specifically. Quibi is rolling out with a paid-only model, targeting 18-34 year-olds with expensive, original content.

With regard to content alone, it is extremely difficult to see where the “white space” is in the market. In the “Peak TV” and social media era we live in, the world hardly seems to need more long-form original TV programming nor more short-form news/information.

Net, net, Colin and I are pretty convinced Quibi will be pivoting soon after its April launch. To what though is unclear.
 
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It’s been hard to avoid reviews and prognostications about Quibi over the past 24 hours since it further pulled back the curtain on its April launch plans. Quibi is the startup mobile video service from Jeffrey Katzenberg (Disney and DreamWorks) and Meg Whitman (eBay and HP) that has raised $1.4 billion (including $400 million just announced) from virtually every Hollywood studio and others.

Quibi will charge $5/mo for its ad-supported tier, and $8/mo for its ad-free tier. Quibi will have 50-60 shows at launch, which will grow to 175 originals within a year. There are “movies told in chapters,” “episodic, unscripted and docs,” and “daily essentials.” The movie content is longest, at 7-10 minutes per clip, with the others targeted for 5-6 minutes per clip. Quibi’s aiming to launch 3 hours of content per day, with the vast majority of it being daily essentials (basically news and information).

Quibi is delivered via a mobile app with feed format. There’s no web site and no CTV apps. It’s targeted to 18-34 year-olds. The big tech innovation is called “Turnstyle” which lets users toggle seamlessly between portrait or landscape mode; all video be shot in each mode, with the same soundtrack overlaid. I haven’t seen the demo but here’s I size things up so far:

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I’m pleased to present the 472nd edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Quibi is making a big bet that viewers are ready to subscribe to a premium mobile video service. This week Colin and I discuss where Quibi might fit into the increasingly competitive video landscape. A critical variable is how viewers’ expectations are going to shift when the ad-free, content-rich Disney+ service costing just $7 per month launches later this year. Colin and I agree that if Quibi charges $8 per month as reported, and doesn’t offer a solid tier as a freemium on-ramp, building audience is going to be very difficult.

Listen in to learn more!

 
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The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!