Well, if you were hoping for another season of Chrissy’s Court, prepare to be disappointed.
When Quibi launched back in April, just six months ago, the most frequent question was “What’s a Quibi”? Not just another streaming platform, it presented a different approach that focused on mobile content released in bite-sized chapters for easy consumption. A whopping $1.75B in capital was raised, and a number of star-studded programs were a part of the initial wave of shows. And yet, here we are and Quibi is closing down before the year is even up.
Yesterday, news began to break that Quibi was looking towards shutting down, after months of subpar numbers for all of their high-profile programs. And now it has been confirmed by Quibi chiefs Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman a statement released to the public…
“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. So it is with an incredibly heavy heart that today we are announcing that we are winding down the business and looking to sell its content and technology assets.”
The statement goes on to offer an apology for “disappointing” Quibi users, and there’s a genuine feeling of sadness that comes through.
So what caused Quibi to fail so quickly and so spectacularly? As someone who never watched a damn thing on it, I’m not really qualified to say. That said, the fact that I never watched a damn thing on it is indicative of their inability to draw users through killer content. The thought was that the pandemic would draw audiences to their platform, but that proved not to work. And it’s clear now that people don’t necessarily want to watch their shows exclusively on mobile devices, even though Quibi did change this in a desperate bid towards the end.
My guess is some of the more successful programs, whichever those are, will be shopped around elsewhere. Netflix, Amazon, Apple…they can all use more content, right?
