Quibi was always a high-risk proposition. Exclusively dedicated to “quick bites” of entertainment, the streamer saw itself as the future. It was a place young adults weaned on YouTube and TikTok could graduate to when they were ready for more glossy, properly produced content. With the streaming marketplace growing more crowded with every passing month, the pressure was on Quibi to get it right out of the box. It didn’t: just a week after its April launch, the streamer dropped off the list of iPhone’s 50 most downloaded free apps in the United States. I think I speak for most of us when I say that I rarely see anyone mention Quibi on Twitter, and when they do, it’s mostly to express puzzlement at what exactly it is.
“I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus,” Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg told the New York Times this week. “Everything. But we own it.”
It’s true that April 6, 2020—several weeks into America’s coronavirus lockdown—was a terrible time to launch anything new. But more established streamers saw their viewing numbers soar as people binged their way through catastrophe. Even Disney+, which landed just four months before Quibi, continues to increase its subscribers, announcing 54.5 million as of May. Disney+ has a massive advantage, of course: it started with a huge backlist of fan favorites and a brand embedded in every American’s brain. But Katzenberg, as former Disney chief, surely knew that in lieu of that familiar content and brand recognition, Quibi had to come at the world with more than a clever concept. Apple’s recent bumpy birth should have been a warning flag that it’s not easy to create a streamer from scratch, even with big names on board and $1.8 billion in startup funds.
So, why doesn’t Quibi work?
1. Too Many Rules
Designed exclusively for iPhones and Androids, Quibi is meant to be watched in spare moments on the fly. But in the age of coronavirus, the notion of “on the fly” is in tatters, replaced by infinite oceans of time. So the very thing that differentiates Quibi from the pack, its raison d’être, has vanished.
When I met Katzenberg and his Quibi partner Meg Whitman in January, they showed me a preview of Nest, a thriller in which a man breaks into a young woman’s house at night. I pointed out that seeing an intruder via the home-security app on the woman’s phone might be even creepier if a viewer watched it in bed on their own phone. “Well, no, you’re on a bus or subway, you’re on the go. It’s 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.,” Katzenberg told me. Quibi’s creator had very stringent instructions for how the platform was to be used, though Whitman did add, “You’re allowed to watch it at home, if you want.” Some shows, like Steven Spielberg’s horror series Spielberg’s After Dark, were even more specific. After Dark was not only designed to be watched at night, but is literally inaccessible to viewers before sundown in their timezone.
In the olden days, TV was defined by limitations: There were just a few channels, you could only watch a show at the exact time it aired, it was impossible to skip commercials, and you had to wait a week to see the next episode. But in 2020, viewers expect full control.
2. Too Many Barriers to Entry
Quibi was intended to be viewed only on an iPhone or an Android. There were no provisions for Apple TV or Google Chromecast or smart TVs at launch, not to mention laptops. Seemingly bowing to pressure, Quibi has announced that it will soon be possible to cast the content to bigger screens from iPhones and, shortly thereafter, Androids. That means the platform’s much-vaunted “turnstyle” technology—which allows viewers to toggle between different perspectives by turning the phone vertically or horizontally—will be largely nullified.
3. No Way to Share
Although Quibi designed its streamer to be watched on phones, it also walled off the app from the rest of the internet. Almost as soon as it launched, viewers and critics expressed shock at the inability to screenshot or share Quibi content. This seems oddly blinkered about the way youngish people relate to pop culture, blocking the possibility for fans to meme shows. Quibi tried to create its own memes and shareable nuggets on Twitter and Instagram, but the lack of interactivity eliminated a sense of ownership and the possibility of a series going viral. “[N]ow that there are hundreds of people on there using it, you go, ‘Uh-oh, we didn’t see that,’” Katzenberg admitted to the Times. They apparently plan to open up the platform to more sharing soon.
4. High-End YouTube: A Contradiction in Terms?
Quibi has positioned itself as an older sibling to YouTube; among its first batch of bites is Floored, a dance competition hosted by YouTube star Liza Koshy. “I don’t think people will necessarily stop watching YouTube and watch Quibi,” Katzenberg told me when I interviewed him in January. “This will be an alternative for them that is Hollywood-quality production with different ways to tell stories, with a different caliber of storytelling and different production values.”
That may still turn out to be true, but I’d suggest that among the things people like about YouTube (and TikTok, for the younger generation) are its chaos and looseness. YouTube is crammed with the kinds of voices and stories that never make it onto standard TV and streaming platforms. You can follow and comment on your favorite YouTubers, whoosh down weird wormholes, numb out to ASMR, and educate yourself with crafts or car repair or makeover instructional videos. The lack of production values is part of its pleasure. In fact, YouTube has actually struggled to create a subscription service of more glossy, scripted original shows with YouTube Premium.
5. Too Small for the Times
I’m sure Quibi execs had research suggesting that attention spans are shrinking and people were panting for quick bites. But right now, everyone I know is looking for something to completely absorb and envelope them—binge-worthy shows that help block out the constant hum of bad news.
There’s also a psychological element to how we value time. “If you’re only spending a few minutes a day with something, you tend to think of that as a lot less valuable than something you’re actually saying, ‘I’m going to carve out three hours of my night and watch on a big screen,’” one industry analyst told me. “Even young consumers will tell you that when it’s really, really good content, they want to put it on the big screen and lean back and watch it that way.”
6. The Economic Meltdown
Recent studies suggest people have a limited pool of money they’re willing to spend on streaming; the war on subscriber churn is fierce. And that was before a huge swathe of the country lost their jobs; even those who haven’t yet been laid off or furloughed are carefully eyeing their bank accounts waiting for the other shoe to drop. Quibi made a partnership with T-Mobile, which should’ve been a good match, but it wasn’t as heavily promoted as it might’ve been. Even though I am a T-Mobile customer, I had to search for information about how the free offer worked, at which point I discovered that only T-Mobile customers with certain accounts qualify—and I wasn’t one of them. Quibi also offered a free 90-day trial subscription, but they may need a longer runway while they make needed adjustments.
7. Adults Only
Just as Katzenberg and Whitman knew when and where they wanted content to be watched, they also had a sharp idea of Quibi’s demographic—and children were not included. Now that everyone is stuck at home, trapped in a finite number of rooms, households often find it’s the kids who are dominating viewing choices. Established streamers like Netflix, Hulu, and now Disney+ have miles of programming for every member of the family.
8. No Breakout Show
Disney+ launched with The Mandalorian. Netflix made noise with Orange Is the New Black (which expertly spread word of itself through a pioneering use of social media) way back when, as well the cliffhanger-laden House of Cards. Amazon seeped into the cultural conversation via the critically acclaimed and controversial Transparent, and Hulu’s originals took flight with The Handmaid’s Tale. Yet something else distinguished all of those streamers: each had substantial back catalogues of movies and shows to keep viewers coming back, as will NBC’s Peacock and HBO Max when they launch in the coming months. Without the lure of a fan favorite like The Office or Friends or Grey’s Anatomy, you need to have a few attention-grabbing, must-watch originals. Even Apple+ debuted with The Morning Show and Dickinson, which tapped two separate demographics of curious viewers and nabbed media and award attention. Without a Baby Yoda of their own, it’s hard to see how word of Quibi will spread, or what that word would be.
Quibi is brimming with wacky unscripted series that sound like you threw the history of game shows and reality TV into a blender and then pressed the green light. Even Quibi’s marquee scripted series are chopped up into low-commitment, 10-minute-or-less slices, so it’s easy to shut them off and go elsewhere. When they do have big names and talented artists, the quick bites can seem a little too concept-driven (Rachel Brosnahan + golden arm! Anna Kendrick + sex doll!). That doesn’t mean that there isn’t fun fare to be found on Quibi—Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson’s favorite is NightGowns—but is that enough to hang a new platform on?
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to reflect that Spielberg’s After Dark is not accessible to viewers before sundown in their timezone.
