Designed to appeal to commuters (in a year where very few of us can actually commute anywhere), Quibi was a platform comprised of short-form TV shows or films broken into segments. At around ten minutes each, they probably would've been ideal in a normal world for train journeys or a long tube trip. But this is no normal world. Never-mind the app failing to consider people who y'know... drive to work.
In an open letter from Jeffrey Katzenberg (former Walt Disney Studios chairman) and Meg Whitman (former chief executive of Hewlett Packard Enterprise), they said they are "tremendously proud of the award-winning and innovative work that we have produced, both in terms of original content and the underlying technology platform", and are looking into finding buyers for their assets. So Quibi content might not be dead?
Much like the public, it seems like no companies are interested in Quibi
You'd think that companies looking to snack up Quibi's content (not even sorry), could include big social media platforms like Facebook, but according to some reports, the website was uninterested in the app/content. It would seem odd, given his former position, for Katzenberg not to try his luck at Disney though. Given their already well-established streaming platform, Disney+, seems to acquire anything and everything nowadays. The Quibi content could be the one asset they just didn't know they needed yet.
But I think it's important to remember that people worked hard on Quibi. Whilst the concept might seem a bit ridiculous whilst we're in the middle of a pandemic, if the world had returned to normality by its release, I reckon Quibi might've lived to see another day. Never-mind the involvement of some pretty big names; Liam Hemsworth in Most Dangerous Game, Chrissy Teigen's Chrissy's Court, Sophie Turner in Survive (the show got nominated for a prime time Emmy!), and Idris Elba driving against Ken Block whilst doing some fancy stunts that might even put Jeremy Clarkson to shame.
So Quibi, this is an ode to you. Quite frankly, I only heard about you through a podcast (thanks Pilot TV) and whilst your shows might've been fifteen minutes long, I somehow found more time to watch every back-to-back episode of Gogglebox on Netflix. But at least you tried, eh?