Despite Their Claims, Quibi Failed On Their Own

Quibi was supposed to be the next wave in media content. Not your typical streaming service, it’s specialty is “quick bites” that were designed to take on the go and not feel obligated to sit in front of a television for hours at a time. With today’s audiences having shorter attention spans and fading interest in network television, it seemed like a good idea.

So far, Quibi has stumbled out of the gate and isn’t quite getting the attention its founders thought it should. Pushing the blame elsewhere, their CEO, Meg Whitman claims that the coronavirus and protests are the reasons the startup is stumbling. Unfortunately, that might not be the case.

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First, Quibi started out with a 90-day free trial. 90 days for content you probably could’ve watched all of it within two weeks or at least the shows you took interest in. It’s not that there’s a lack of content, but there are a ton of shows that only appeal to certain audiences. With shorter shows they don’t build past the audience the shows were designed for. Network and streaming television have 20-40 minutes that not only target a certain audience with their shows but can draw in outside viewers of each genre with proper storytelling. Shows that are over in under 10 minutes have zero time to develop.

Then the user interface wasn’t that great. Using the app on an iPhone was simple enough. Unfortunately discovering new content was not. Every show was its own individual tile, and you’d have to swipe to the next one like a Tinder profile. Then if you did find a show you had to navigate to its page to read more information and play the episodes. The experience of finding a show took longer than actually watching the show itself.

Quibi had some positives though. There is a ton of star power with athletes like LeBron James and Cam Newton attached to a couple of shows. They had a couple of big-name actors on theirU as well such as Sophie Turner from Game of Thrones. All the celebrity status that was involved however wasn’t enough to draw people in.

Their target audience was clearly a younger generation who are always on the go, but Quibi has no one to blame but themselves. In the world of streaming, their content was barely longer than a TikTok or Instagram live video. That kind of short attention is spent on social media and not a streaming app. It was a great idea but a slow launch and poor execution slowed their growth more than a pandemic. If they’re going to stick around, Quibi will have to get a little more creative in the long haul.