The Fall of Quibi
July 1, 2020 12:53 PM Subscribe
They shoulda called it Fetch.
posted by runehog at 1:05 PM on July 1, 2020 [26 favorites]
posted by runehog at 1:05 PM on July 1, 2020 [26 favorites]
Staffers reportedly “seethed” at Reese Witherspoon’s $6m salary for voiceover work on six-minute episodes of the nature series Fierce Queens as Quibi’s poor performance threatened layoffs, according to Page Six. (Witherspoon’s husband Jim Toth is the head of talent and content acquisition at the company.)
God I love Silicon Valley fuckery
posted by Think_Long at 1:09 PM on July 1, 2020 [24 favorites]
God I love Silicon Valley fuckery
posted by Think_Long at 1:09 PM on July 1, 2020 [24 favorites]
Notflix.
posted by flabdablet at 1:12 PM on July 1, 2020 [13 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 1:12 PM on July 1, 2020 [13 favorites]
God I love Silicon Valley fuckery
Quibi is based in Los Angeles, which is a decent amount further from Silicon Valley as Paris is from London.
posted by sideshow at 1:13 PM on July 1, 2020 [11 favorites]
Quibi is based in Los Angeles, which is a decent amount further from Silicon Valley as Paris is from London.
posted by sideshow at 1:13 PM on July 1, 2020 [11 favorites]
Has any streaming platform based solely on original content been very successful? Netflix/Disney/HBO etc. are premised on a mixture of familiar movies and TV plus new things exclusive to their service. Seeso and Go90 are dead and I don’t have the sense Apple TV is really tearing it up.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 1:14 PM on July 1, 2020
posted by Horace Rumpole at 1:14 PM on July 1, 2020
And if you are going to go with "but Meg!", she left Ebay in 2007 and HP hasn't been what you probably think Silicon Valley means for half a century.
posted by sideshow at 1:20 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by sideshow at 1:20 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
You can't take screenshots on Quibi? I can't think of a better way to ensure that none of your content becomes part of pop culture.
posted by theodolite at 1:21 PM on July 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 1:21 PM on July 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
I was sure that a streaming service with 10 minute or less videos was doomed to fail, just as I knew that there was no future for a blogging platform with a 140 character limit.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:23 PM on July 1, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:23 PM on July 1, 2020 [10 favorites]
Lack of public awareness might be an overriding problem if you intend your platform to be a mass-market product. I'd never heard of it before seeing this post about its imminent demise.
posted by ardgedee at 1:23 PM on July 1, 2020 [12 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 1:23 PM on July 1, 2020 [12 favorites]
Quibi, despite the name, wasn’t a bad idea. YouTube and TikTok have shown that short form entertainment is viable. Except that it was such an idea spawned from a distilled executive report, “5 million views a day under 2 minutes!” Without acknowledging what makes those videos popular: relatable, can do it at home but also aspirational nature aimed at teens. I can completely see how an out of touch executive looked at the numbers and came to this conclusion. Unfortunately the answer isn’t overproduced content with Reese Witherspoon who is probably as relevant as Ava Gardner. It is putting in a naive, good looking 17 year old with questionable makeup skills and posting “I was given $100,000 for what?!” That makes viewers think that’s what they’d do. Like a good friend sent them a video.
posted by geoff. at 1:25 PM on July 1, 2020 [15 favorites]
posted by geoff. at 1:25 PM on July 1, 2020 [15 favorites]
I don’t have the sense Apple TV is really tearing it up.
Not to get on a tangent, but I'll give a shout out to Central Park on Apple TV+. It's pretty clever and funny, and the musical numbers are actually quite good. Stanley Tucci is tremendous as always. There is the whole issue of Kristin Bell voicing a multi-racial character which definitely struck me as weird when I first saw/heard it, but they're resolving that.
posted by schoolgirl report at 1:26 PM on July 1, 2020
Not to get on a tangent, but I'll give a shout out to Central Park on Apple TV+. It's pretty clever and funny, and the musical numbers are actually quite good. Stanley Tucci is tremendous as always. There is the whole issue of Kristin Bell voicing a multi-racial character which definitely struck me as weird when I first saw/heard it, but they're resolving that.
posted by schoolgirl report at 1:26 PM on July 1, 2020
A few days ago I heard that this charity version of The Princess Bride was coming and I thought, "sure that sounds fun, I'll watch that" and then I saw the part about it being on Quibi and noped out.
posted by acidnova at 1:30 PM on July 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by acidnova at 1:30 PM on July 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
“quick bites” (hence, “qui-bi”)
Wait, so - kwi-bye, NOT kwi-bee?
:head explosion emoji:
posted by Going To Maine at 1:31 PM on July 1, 2020 [19 favorites]
Wait, so - kwi-bye, NOT kwi-bee?
:head explosion emoji:
posted by Going To Maine at 1:31 PM on July 1, 2020 [19 favorites]
I'd never heard of it before seeing this post about its imminent demise.
I was a little surprised when I searched for "quibi" on MetaFilter before I posted this and found exactly one hit.
posted by Etrigan at 1:32 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
I was a little surprised when I searched for "quibi" on MetaFilter before I posted this and found exactly one hit.
posted by Etrigan at 1:32 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
I'm sure a few of the mini-theatrical presentations were quite good, now if there was a way to see the good ones on youtube....
posted by sammyo at 1:34 PM on July 1, 2020
posted by sammyo at 1:34 PM on July 1, 2020
Anything that is so extravagantly funded before launch is almost guaranteed to fail. All the executives were used to enormous organizations, with enormous staffs and marketing budgets. Maybe it could have grown into something of that scale, but launching something truly new that way just doesn't work.
posted by PhineasGage at 1:35 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 1:35 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
One of the primary reasons the suits were such a big fan of the Quibi model is that they don't have to pay union rates to the people working on the shows. So all those big celebrity payouts were made at the expense of the show crews.
posted by haileris23 at 1:42 PM on July 1, 2020 [46 favorites]
posted by haileris23 at 1:42 PM on July 1, 2020 [46 favorites]
I thought it was pronounced like quinoa.
posted by pipeski at 1:44 PM on July 1, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by pipeski at 1:44 PM on July 1, 2020 [6 favorites]
Yeah, everyone (save the ones committed to the bit) immediately associated / described Quibi as 'stop trying to make fetch happen'. The thing they didn't catch was that there's a big difference between short-format content produced by a studio, and what happens when you create musical.ly->Vine->TikTok and let people generate content for each other.
Some people DO get their 'news' from Twitter; but no one would pay to subscribe to a news periodical with an 140 character limit on articles.
posted by bartleby at 1:44 PM on July 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
Some people DO get their 'news' from Twitter; but no one would pay to subscribe to a news periodical with an 140 character limit on articles.
posted by bartleby at 1:44 PM on July 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
Wait, so - kwi-bye, NOT kwi-bee?
K bye.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:52 PM on July 1, 2020 [28 favorites]
K bye.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:52 PM on July 1, 2020 [28 favorites]
I was sort of interested because Justin McElroy was making an appearance on a Quibi show, but I'm bad at resigning from free trials. And otherwise, if the pitch is "Youtube except it's a walled garden and the UI sucks and it's not free," I can't hang with it. The Princess Bride bit does sound adorable, though, especially if it's got Patton Oswalt.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:22 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 2:22 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
I don't know, I think I'd actually like to watch a well-made show with 10-15 minute episodes, if I cared about the characters and the episodes were engrossing but specifically didn't end on cliffhangers -- seems like it would make for satisfying breaks throughout the day. You'd think a pandemic where millions of people are juggling work and childcare and only get a few minutes here and there to themselves might be a good opportunity for something like that. But I guess their content wasn't good, and
if the pitch is "Youtube except it's a walled garden and the UI sucks and it's not free," I can't hang with it.
even if it were good I probably wouldn't bother for that reason.
posted by trig at 2:33 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
if the pitch is "Youtube except it's a walled garden and the UI sucks and it's not free," I can't hang with it.
even if it were good I probably wouldn't bother for that reason.
posted by trig at 2:33 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
One of the primary reasons the suits were such a big fan of the Quibi model is that they don't have to pay union rates to the people working on the shows. So all those big celebrity payouts were made at the expense of the show crews.
This feels a little like complaining that sports stars make millions "at the expense" of poorly paid stadium staff. Quibi spent a ton of money, but I don't get the sense that most of it went to Jennifer Lopez.
posted by grandiloquiet at 2:37 PM on July 1, 2020
This feels a little like complaining that sports stars make millions "at the expense" of poorly paid stadium staff. Quibi spent a ton of money, but I don't get the sense that most of it went to Jennifer Lopez.
posted by grandiloquiet at 2:37 PM on July 1, 2020
So from what I understand, you can only view it on a phone and not on a computer or TV?
posted by octothorpe at 2:37 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 2:37 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
That's what turned me off. I have a TV. Let me use my big screen.
posted by tiny frying pan at 2:41 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 2:41 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
Is this something I would need to not have a television* to understand?
* but, apparently, still want to watch TV?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:47 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
* but, apparently, still want to watch TV?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:47 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
This feels a little like complaining that sports stars make millions "at the expense" of poorly paid stadium staff. Quibi spent a ton of money, but I don't get the sense that most of it went to Jennifer Lopez.
Sure, but it's still the case that finding loopholes in union rules so they could make TV shows without paying union rates is their business model and I wish them ignominious failure.
posted by straight at 3:01 PM on July 1, 2020 [28 favorites]
Sure, but it's still the case that finding loopholes in union rules so they could make TV shows without paying union rates is their business model and I wish them ignominious failure.
posted by straight at 3:01 PM on July 1, 2020 [28 favorites]
On the plus side the documentary on its rise and fall should come in just under 10 minutes.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:13 PM on July 1, 2020 [34 favorites]
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:13 PM on July 1, 2020 [34 favorites]
I remember hearing about this in a podcast.
I wonder if coronovirus also killed its groove: 10 minutes on your phone is good for the bus / subway, but useless if you're home with your big screens anyway.
posted by batter_my_heart at 4:27 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
I wonder if coronovirus also killed its groove: 10 minutes on your phone is good for the bus / subway, but useless if you're home with your big screens anyway.
posted by batter_my_heart at 4:27 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
I’m probably an outlier, but the last thing I want to use to watch a tv show is my little phone. It’s like telling me I can get the novel of the year in bits and read it on my phone. That’s a punishment, not an opportunity.
posted by sallybrown at 4:33 PM on July 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by sallybrown at 4:33 PM on July 1, 2020 [5 favorites]
I was sure that a streaming service with 10 minute or less videos was doomed to fail, just as I knew that there was no future for a blogging platform with a 140 character limit.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 4:23 PM on July 1
You were right: they had to up the limit to 280 characters. Also, judging by the emergence of the Twitter thread, when people really want to talk about something, they need more characters.
But is it true that the basic limit does push one towards brevity. I find myself rewriting tweets to be shorter and sharper than any blog comment I would make.
posted by jb at 4:45 PM on July 1, 2020
MeFi's own Keith Calder had this one dead to rights some time ago:
Quibi made the biggest mistake in film/tv, and it’s a surprise given how successful the founders are. It’s ALWAYS better to be the top priority project for upcoming talent than the lowest priority project for big established talent. A huge strategic creative development error.posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:48 PM on July 1, 2020 [14 favorites]
It is also, as the article and Katzenberg and others have pointed out, a pure disaster to be the streaming service aimed at people on the go during a period of time when most people don't go anywhere. All they have now is the quality of the shows, which, uh
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:49 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:49 PM on July 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
I think a big part of the success of short form YouTube and Ticktock videos, particularly among youth and young adults, is that it's something the audience can at least pretend to themselves that they could attain if they just put a little work into it. The low budget casualness makes it more like hanging out with your older sibling's cooler friend or the funny, edgy kids at school, rather than hearing a millionaire celebrity doing something. When they want higher production values and big names, I think they still tend to want more conventional length movies or shows.
And yes, nthing that their target demographic is going to be upset at anything that resists memes and reaction gifs.
posted by Candleman at 5:40 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
And yes, nthing that their target demographic is going to be upset at anything that resists memes and reaction gifs.
posted by Candleman at 5:40 PM on July 1, 2020 [4 favorites]
I wonder if coronovirus also killed its groove: 10 minutes on your phone is good for the bus / subway, but useless if you're home with your big screens anyway.
The "I KNEW it would fail!" schadenfreude is strong in this thread but I thought the idea had promise and I even liked the few shows I started watching. I thought the gimmick of having a somewhat differently-composed shot depending on how you hold your phone was pretty neat. At first I kept flipping back and forth to see what shots I liked better but it was also nice to just hold your phone how you want to hold it and have the shot look composed for that image ratio.
It may have been a victim of more than one thing -- smarmy too-successful-to-fail-anti-union founders (didn't know about the troubling union angle until this thread, yuck) and the fact that the target audiences aren't doing a lot of commuting these days. I remember thinking "well, that would have been fun on a bus ride" just as things were shutting down.
posted by treepour at 5:41 PM on July 1, 2020 [6 favorites]
The "I KNEW it would fail!" schadenfreude is strong in this thread but I thought the idea had promise and I even liked the few shows I started watching. I thought the gimmick of having a somewhat differently-composed shot depending on how you hold your phone was pretty neat. At first I kept flipping back and forth to see what shots I liked better but it was also nice to just hold your phone how you want to hold it and have the shot look composed for that image ratio.
It may have been a victim of more than one thing -- smarmy too-successful-to-fail-anti-union founders (didn't know about the troubling union angle until this thread, yuck) and the fact that the target audiences aren't doing a lot of commuting these days. I remember thinking "well, that would have been fun on a bus ride" just as things were shutting down.
posted by treepour at 5:41 PM on July 1, 2020 [6 favorites]
If they renarketed it as suitable for lines to get into shops it might have a chance...
posted by lesbiassparrow at 6:13 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by lesbiassparrow at 6:13 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]
Also, if you're going to try to be the Google of something in propaganda, better check to make sure you're not actually the Cuil.
posted by Candleman at 6:23 PM on July 1, 2020
posted by Candleman at 6:23 PM on July 1, 2020
I tried the free trial and cancelled within 2 days. The subscription price was absurd. More than Netflix? More than the Criterion Channel?! Seriously, fuck off.
Also they have a show with Lior Suchard and the two episodes I watched took place on a football field. WTF? Ridiculous. How could you make this guy boring (regardless of real/fake)? Mind bogglingly bad choice.
posted by dobbs at 6:29 PM on July 1, 2020
Also they have a show with Lior Suchard and the two episodes I watched took place on a football field. WTF? Ridiculous. How could you make this guy boring (regardless of real/fake)? Mind bogglingly bad choice.
posted by dobbs at 6:29 PM on July 1, 2020
I’m not signing up for any more streaming services but I’m all for shorter programming. Television peaked with Adventure Time’s 11 minute episodes if you ask me, and my interest in seeing any given movie starts dropping with every minute of running time over 90.
posted by rodlymight at 7:22 PM on July 1, 2020
posted by rodlymight at 7:22 PM on July 1, 2020
I saw about 900000 ads for the Liam Hemsworth thing and literally nothing else about Quibi. And since that's just a rehashing of a concept -- oh no, you're being hunted! -- that's been done about a hundred times and seems like it would just be annoying in tiny bites -- more cliffhangers, umm, yay? -- it didn't seem worth looking into further. If I'd known there was Chrissy Teigan being snarky content on it, I might have been much more interested.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:27 PM on July 1, 2020
posted by jacquilynne at 7:27 PM on July 1, 2020
Anything that is so extravagantly funded before launch is almost guaranteed to fail.
Just want to point out everything is almost guaranteed to fail. The stats back me up on this. The main difference is something extravagantly funded won't fail quietly and invisibly, as most other things do.
posted by mark k at 9:21 PM on July 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
Just want to point out everything is almost guaranteed to fail. The stats back me up on this. The main difference is something extravagantly funded won't fail quietly and invisibly, as most other things do.
posted by mark k at 9:21 PM on July 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
I too had never heard of this service until I saw the whole bit Cody Johnston made on that other short form streaming service.
posted by St. Oops at 9:38 PM on July 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by St. Oops at 9:38 PM on July 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
I signed up for a two week free trial because Kirby Jenner is like one social circle away from me and his IG account has been hilarious all these years. Watched a couple of eps and it was fairly terrible. Cancelled my two week free trial one week early. Those prices are indeed absurd.
Friend (coincidentally the one who's social circle included Kirby) got an editing gig on an animated series just as COVID-19 quarantine was happening, so even if Quibi crashes she's been able to bank some dough and keep busy. Really busy actually, her boss (also an editor) is apparently The Fastest Editor in the West and demands similar output from his team.
posted by carsonb at 9:44 PM on July 1, 2020
Friend (coincidentally the one who's social circle included Kirby) got an editing gig on an animated series just as COVID-19 quarantine was happening, so even if Quibi crashes she's been able to bank some dough and keep busy. Really busy actually, her boss (also an editor) is apparently The Fastest Editor in the West and demands similar output from his team.
posted by carsonb at 9:44 PM on July 1, 2020
Whoa, Cuil. I had 100% forgotten Cuil.
posted by away for regrooving at 2:01 AM on July 2, 2020
posted by away for regrooving at 2:01 AM on July 2, 2020
Ironically enough, Google has become more like Cuil, in that it gives you bad results and computer generated synopses. So perhaps in 10 years, Quibi will have the last laugh as Netflix shifts to 8 minute long documentaries narrated by Natalie Portman and vigilante action shorts starring Christian Bale that are only viewable on your smart watch.
posted by Candleman at 2:16 AM on July 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Candleman at 2:16 AM on July 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
Every ad I saw for this thing left me wondering why in the hell it existed? It seemed to be singularly aimed at a need that didn't exist, as far as I could tell. Not surprised it failed to achieve escape velocity.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:18 AM on July 2, 2020
posted by Thorzdad at 3:18 AM on July 2, 2020
Yes, it's a massive folly, but I swear both Gayme Show and Dishmantled gave me as much joy as any media properties have during lockdown.
posted by Gin and Broadband at 4:41 AM on July 2, 2020
posted by Gin and Broadband at 4:41 AM on July 2, 2020
I don’t have the sense Apple TV is really tearing it up
That one with Captain America in it wasn't half-bad.
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:27 PM on July 5, 2020
That one with Captain America in it wasn't half-bad.
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:27 PM on July 5, 2020
Way late to the party, but here to recommend Is Anyone Watching Quibi? (Benjamin Wallace for Vulture, 6 July 2020). Contains plenty of gems particularly concerning Katzenberg and Whitman, e.g.
People have wondered why Katzenberg and Whitman, in their late and early 60s, respectively, and not very active on social media, would believe they have uniquely penetrating insight into the unacknowledged desires of young people. When I ask Whitman what TV shows she watches, she responds, “I’m not sure I’d classify myself as an entertainment enthusiast.” But any particular shows she likes? “Grant,” she offered. “On the History Channel. It’s about President Grant.”posted by hangashore at 10:18 AM on July 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
Katzenberg is on his phone all the time, but he is also among the moguls of his generation who have their emails printed out (and vertically folded, for some reason) by an assistant. In enthusing about what a show could mean for Quibi, Katzenberg would repeatedly invoke the same handful of musty touchstones — America’s Funniest Home Videos, Siskel and Ebert, and Jane Fonda’s exercise tapes. When Gal Gadot came to the offices and delivered an impassioned speech about wanting to elevate the voices of girls and women, Katzenberg wondered aloud whether she might become the new Jane Fonda and do a workout series for Quibi. (“Apparently, her face fell,” says a person briefed on the meeting.)
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posted by Etrigan at 12:53 PM on July 1, 2020 [1 favorite]