Short-form streaming platform Quibi to shut down [confirmed]

Less than a day after landing on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Fire stick, and Android TV, Quibi will be shutting down services after all.

Launched in April, Quibi touted itself as a breakthrough streaming medium for the on-the-go generation. The service offered 5- to 10-minute long "chapters," in a format that was optimized for viewing on a smartphone.

However, as the coronavirus forced many indoors, the demand for on-the-go entertainment dwindled. The service even attempted to make jumps to larger screens through other streaming hardware, including smart TVs and set-top boxes like the Apple TV.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg has called investors to inform them that the service would be shutting down.

Quibi had originally reached out to Apple in hopes that the Cupertino-based tech giant would buy them out. However, Apple's senior vice president of internet software and services, Eddy Cue, turned Katzenberg down.

With some $2 billion invested, Quibi expected to reach seven million subscribers after one year. It is currently estimated to have between 400,000 and 500,000 paying subscribers, some of whom received a free subscription through a T-Mobile promotion.

Update: Hours after the WSJ broke, Katzenberg and Quibi CEO Meg Whitman confirmed the shutdown in an open letter to employees, investors and partners.

14 Comments

williamh 13 Years · 1048 comments

About 4 years ago

Didn’t this thing make it to Apple TV a couple days ago? Yikes!

This has a been a T-Mobile Tuesday freebie for a few weeks and I had no interest.

StrangeDays 8 Years · 12986 comments

yeah I guess vertical video on a widescreen TV wasn't a good idea either.

omar morales 12 Years · 60 comments

williamh said:

Didn’t this thing make it to Apple TV a couple days ago? Yikes!

This has a been a T-Mobile Tuesday freebie for a few weeks and I had no interest.

Less than a day after landing on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and Fire stick, and Android TV, Quibi will be shutting down services after all.
It’s right there on the very first paragraph. Reading pass the headline isn’t that hard.

firelock 11 Years · 241 comments

It’s hard not to have schadenfreude about this as it was very much a “emperor’s new suit” situation. The company’s investors were duped by a self-delusional egomaniac and almost anyone with any industry savvy knew this venture would fail hard. They are just lucky that they launched this year so that they could blame their failure on the pandemic when in reality it was doomed from the start.

Beats 4 Years · 3073 comments

I know everyone wants to poke fun but there has to be some talent here Apple can pick up?

firelock said:

It’s hard not to have schadenfreude about this as it was very much a “emperor’s new suit” situation. The company’s investors were duped by a self-delusional egomaniac and almost anyone with any industry savvy knew this venture would fail hard. They are just lucky that they launched this year so that they could blame their failure on the pandemic when in reality it was doomed from the start.

I always felt the company was made to later shop for an acquisition.