Quibi vs Netflix. A $1.75bn failure or Quibi can beat Netflix?
Quibi vs Netflix. A brand-new application with up to 10-minute episodes cost $1.75bn including in its cost such A-list stars as Idris Elba and Jennifer Lopez.
Have you heard about the fucking shit Quibi? Worthless 10 minutes of vague content, though with a bunch of ads on TV, YouTube, and Instagram already.
The idea to unite Hollywood prestige and resources with a snackable content, popular in social media networks and similar dumps, was supported by a billionaire. Such a deep-pocketed attempt was made to draw our poor attention and entertain us to hell until we all croak. Quibi is concerned about the only issue if fucking $1.75bn will make up for its launch this week and change the nature of streaming.
The company is founded and run by Hollywood legend Jeffrey Katzenberg and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman who recklessly believe in their bullshit. They simply do not give a fuck about a saturated market of time-tested streaming services namely Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and HBO, and growth of relatively new like Disney +, Apple TV+, CBS AllAccess. This list goes on and on. Quibi is working its way up to the top of mobile-specific content divided into seven to 10 minute “quick bites” of content. That’s where the name comes from, “QUIck-BItes”. Hence, it becomes clear that it is competing less with the full-length streamers than with greedy devourers of your time and mind as Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.
Even though this new service is primarily aimed to distract and blow up the minds of younger audiences, still it emerges from the depths of Hollywood and the Silicon Valley establishment. Katzenberg, 69, was once chairman of Walt Disney Studios (1984 to 1994) and co-founded DreamWorks Animation, where he was the long-time CEO; Whitman, 63, was CEO of eBay as it mushroomed into a billion-dollar online marketplace, and was later CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 2011-2017 (she also failed running for governor of California as a Republican in 2010). Thanks to shitloads of money and some big shots among friends both billionaires are ready to corner the market and splash out on prestige, talent and popularity. Such business beasts as Google, Anheuser-Busch, Walmart, PepsiCo, and Procter & Gamble are their advertising fellas.
A medley of celebrities including Joe Jonas, Idris Elba, Sophie Turner, Chrissy Teigen, Chance the Rapper, LeBron James, Jennifer Lopez, Reese Witherspoon, Liam Hemsworth, Christoph Waltz, Lena Waithe, Nicole Richie, Demi Lovato, Will Smith, Laura Dern, Kevin Hart, Tyra Banks, Zac Efron, Bill Murray, and Laurence Fishburne have flocked together in peak 2020 maximalist, chaotic fashion. Such ace producers and directors as Steven Speilberg, Guillermo del Toro, Ridley Scott, Antoine Fuqua, Catherine Hardwicke, and Sam Raimi created exclusive shows for the service. What is more, a cracking filmmaking technology, Turnstyle, which allows you to shift your viewing from portrait mode to landscape and back seamlessly, was also patented by Quibi.
The company will be launching a bunch of homegrown shows while the rest of streaming giants have already purchased and stored a fuckload of libraries of original or licensed content over time. The so-called service “Three hours of fresh, original, premium content” will be released every weekday afterward, beginning with three episodes each of its first 50 titles, and rolling out 25 episodes. Fucking-digging but 175 original shows are planned to be released just in its first year, which makes up 8,500 “quibis” of content. The whole range of service production is divided into three main groups. Features or season-length stories in 7 to 10-minute bits will be included in Movies in Chapters. Unscripted and Docs, supposedly are the most promising category given its persona power. Just think about Judge Judy youtube2017, who is herself a classy internet star Chrissy Teigen and the owner of the most successful house style of YouTube. And last but not least, Daily Essentials, which cover 5 to 6-minute news updates from already established houses like the BBC, NBC News, The Weather Channel, Telemundo and ESPN (also: Rotten Tomatoes, TMZ, and “Trailers by Fandango”).
A free 90-day trial will be at your disposal, thus it significantly prevails its main competitors Netflix and Amazon Prime (30 days) or Apple TV+ or Hulu/Disney+ (7 days). It can lead to a dramatic Netflix switch to change their policy and regulations if they still want to keep their heads above water. To rub it in a monthly subscription will cost you $4.99 with ads and $7.99 without ads. It’s up to you whether you want to watch a true scattershot of content, from Chrissy’s Court, to Chance the Rapper’s reboot of MTV’s Punk’d, to Sophie Turner somehow escaping a plane crash on Survive, to Witherspoon waxing about cheetahs finding self-confidence on the savannah in Fierce Queens, to a documentary on James’s I Promise school and stuff like that.
“Five years from now, we want to come back on this stage and if we were successful, there will have been the era of movies, the era of television and the era of Quibi,”. “What Google is to search, Quibi will be to short-form video.”, was told a crowd by Katzenberg’s phantom pitch at South by Southwest in 2019. Come on, smart asses, 5 years from now can be too late as Insurgent on Netflix is available at any time convenient for you. Holy moly, there’s plenty of opportunities to watch Insurgent for free online or No Way Out, no matter whether they were approved or disapproved by Rotten Tomatoes.
One of the precedents for a Hollywood game-changer to short-form content being endorsed by YouTubers or up-and-comers was insecure creator Issa Rae. For instance, she moved to a full-length HBO sitcom from her minutes-long webseries The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. In 2019, Netflix debuted several series with episodes of about 15 minutes: Special, Bonding, and the cult-hit sketch comedy series I Think You Should Leave. The quarter-hour comedy series Three Busy Debras, from star Sandy Honig and producer Amy Poehler, premiered in March. Indeed it was an experiment by Sundance TV with State of the Union, a Nick Hornby-written series in which Rosamund Pike and Chris O’Dowd spend 10-minute episodes at a bar before their marital therapy session.
However, Quibi does not give a damn and keeps daydreaming. Quite a few successful experiments were done by intoxicating TikTok or YouTube videos overburned with trash. Bits of life, which are essential for Quibi, has suddenly disappeared. We are no longer interested in checking some short videos while arriving 10 minutes ahead of our friends to the bar, waiting for coffee, commuting to school and/or work. There is one more ominous sign for Quibi that podcast downloads in the US, the staple sidekick for many work commutes or background entertainment, have dipped at least 7% since mass shutdowns and work from home orders began in mid-March.
Yet, it is not clear whether Quibi’s launch will be fucked up or not, while there is life, there is hope. “People still have their in-between moments to be entertained after homeschooling or Zoom meetings.”, Whitman told MarketWatch days.
We speak for ourselves either to be entertained in those few moments or use our time efficiently and for our own fucking good. Quibi laid it on the line with you whether to dick around or not. So far the service is available in the US and the UK. Go ahead and make your choice, dudes, and dudettes.
