This archive report was first published on 30 October 2019.
Launched with a $1 billion investment from major studios, Quibi is a mobile-centric streaming service that aims to attract younger viewers with short-form content.
Founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, a former Disney executive and co-founder of DreamWorks Animation, Quibi drew inspiration from Dan Brown's bestselling novel 'The Da Vinci Code', which has over 100 chapters averaging five pages each.
Quibi's CEO, Meg Whitman, explained at a recent conference in Los Angeles that the service is designed to cater to the needs of millennials, who are always on the move and may not have long stretches of time to watch a series episode or a movie in one shot.
"We created a new platform for on-the-go viewing able to (attract) a hard-to-reach audience," Whitman said.
Quibi will offer Hollywood-quality videos in short form, designed exclusively for mobile devices. The service will initially be available in the United States and Canada, with a monthly subscription fee of $5 with ads and $8 ad-free.
Despite concerns about the viability of the service, Gene del Vecchio, a marketing and entertainment expert, believes that Quibi could be successful if younger people are willing to pay up to $8 a month for a new streaming service.
"It fits the lifestyle of today's millennials," del Vecchio said. "They want quick bites, they want five-minute episodes so that they can watch it in between college classes."
