Quibi Television

**Quibi Television** (often shortened to **QTV**) is an American digital multicast television network that is owned by ACME Networks, LLC, a limited liability joint venture between the Dorado Media Group, and the Studios and Networks division of AT&T's WarnerMedia. The network's programming, which is aimed in the 18-34 age range, includes serialized drama series, sports, sitcoms, reruns of imported series previously aired on parent network ACME, reality and variety series, and theatrically released feature films.

Quibi originally made its debut on April 6, 2020, as a short-form streaming platform that generated content for viewing on mobile devices. It was founded in Los Angeles in August 2018 as **NewTV** by Jeffrey Katzenberg and is led by Meg Whitman, its CEO. The service raised $1.75 billion from investors.

On October 21, 2020, six months after its launch, Katzenberg announced the platform would shut down on December 1, 2020, after falling well short of its subscriber projections.

## History

### **Pre-launch**

Quibi was founded in August 2018 as NewTV by Jeffrey Katzenberg and was led by Meg Whitman, its CEO. In October 2018, NewTV was renamed Quibi. The service targeted a younger demographic, with content delivered in 10-minute episodes called "quick bites" (with the name Quibi derived from "QUI-ck BI-tes"). In 2018, Quibi raised $1 billion in funding from major Hollywood film studios, TV companies, telecommunications companies, technology companies, banks, and other investors including The Walt Disney Company, 21st Century Fox, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, Time Warner, Viacom, eOne, Lionsgate, MGM, Madrone Capital, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Alibaba Group, Liberty Global and ITV.

In 2019, Quibi announced it would launch in April 2020 with two pricing tiers. On July 8, 2019, BBC Studios announced it had invested in Quibi. By late 2019, Quibi announced it had sold out its first-year advertising inventory, which amounted to $150 million.

In 2020, Quibi presented at CES on its full launch plans including details on its content, technology, and partnerships. In March 2020, Quibi announced a partnership with Canadian telecommunications company BCE, whereby its Bell Media division would produce Canadian news and sports content for the service (via CTV News and TSN respectively), and Bell Mobility would be Quibi's exclusive Canadian telecom marketing partner.

### **Launch**

Quibi launched on April 6, 2020. It was available in the United States and Canada. An ad-free U.S. version of the app was made available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and Germany among others on April 6, 2020. TechCrunch reported that Quibi saw 300,000 downloads and "hit No. 3 in the App Store" on its launch day. On April 14, the company announced it had seen 1.7 million downloads of its app in its release week. In the Google Play store, Quibi ranked No. 11 for the most downloaded app as of April 16.

Quibi's app fell out of the list of the 50 most downloaded free iPhone apps in the United States a week after it was released. According to the analytics firm Sensor Tower, by early May, the app was ranked 125th. Sensor Tower also said the app had been installed by 2.9 million customers, although Quibi says the figure was closer to 3.5 million. Of those who had installed the app, Quibi says 1.3 million were active users. Katzenberg acknowledged the performance was "not close to what we wanted," stating, "I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus"—a reference to the COVID-19 pandemic that was disrupting daily routines at the time of the launch. Whitman was more positive in her assessment of the launch.

Moves were made to adjust the service by allowing users to share content on social media platforms and to watch shows on televisions in addition to phones. A feature was added to allow shows to be cast from phones onto TVs through AirPlay and Chromecast, with the screen orientation being set to a landscape by default. Quibi also developed its own screenshotting function.

By early June, it was reported that the company implemented voluntary executive pay cuts. Katzenberg and Whitman stated that while Quibi was "in a good financial position" the company's senior executives volunteered to "take a 10% pay cut because it's the right thing to do." The company had reportedly avoided reducing its staffing levels, though the app had fallen out of the top 1,000 apps on Sensor Tower's rankings. That same month, it was reported that the service was on track for 2 million subscribers in its first year, far below its projected 7.4 million total. From January to mid-June, Quibi raised an additional $750 million in funding. In July 2020, Sensor Tower reported that about 8 percent of Quibi's early wave of users had converted into paying subscribers, while subscription-analytics firm Antenna reported that 27% of "Quibi day 1, 90-day trial users converted their trials," though Quibi stated these numbers were inaccurate. Additionally, in July 2020, a federal judge denied Eko's request for a preliminary injunction.

In early August, a free, ad-supported version of the service was released in Australia and New Zealand, and the price of the ad-free version was reduced. According to reports in *The Wall Street Journal* and *Recode* in September 2020, the platform was looking for a potential acquirer with other possibilities, such as raising more funds or becoming a public company by backing into a shell corporation. The report stated Quibi had $200 million in funds available.

In October, Quibi was made available on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Google TV.

### **Shutdown**

On October 21, 2020, just six months after Quibi's launch, *The Wall Street Journal* reported that the streaming service was shutting down. Later, that same day, this news was confirmed by both Katzenberg and Whitman. Katzenberg told *Deadline Hollywood*, "There was no question that keeping us going was not going to have a different outcome, it was just going to spend a whole lot more money without any value to show for it. So, out of respect for these people that put up this extraordinary amount of capital to do it, that's irresponsible and we both felt we shouldn't do it." In the interview, Katzenberg also cited the unfortunate timing of the launch during the pandemic as a contributing factor. At the time of the announcement, Quibi had approximately 500,000 subscribers.

The announcement of the shutdown left the fate of existing, upcoming, and planned original programming in “development hell” as Quibi does not own the rights to any of their programming, since their deals with the creators of their original programming allowed them to retain the copyright to their content and distribute it in traditional forms after a few years. The next day, on October 22, it was announced that Quibi would officially shut down "on or around" December 1.

### **2021 relaunch**

On December 8, 2020, ACME Networks held an upfront presentation announcing an extension to its programming for the 2020–21 season. Executives from the Dorado Media Group announced that they would combine resources from Quibi's former over-the-top content, and ACME's programming strategies to form a new broadcast network, while retaining the Quibi name, that would – at the outset – feature programming from its predecessors as well as new content developed specifically for the new network.

Quibi underwent a significant rebranding, changing its format from short-form episodes, broadening to a more general focus on original scripted programming. CEO Bradford Wesley planned to commission and acquire more series from "independent" studios. There are also plans for Quibi to acquire new pitches directly from their writers, and offer them to outside producers.

Dorado shortened the network's official name from "Quibi Television" to the three-letter initialism, "QTV" in order to reflect a new strategy of an expansion of programming appealing more toward young adults as opposed to families or teenagers.

## Programming

Quibi currently provides 19 hours of regularly scheduled network programming each week. The network provides fifteen hours of prime time programming to its owned-and-operated and affiliated stations on Monday through Saturdays from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. and Sundays from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. (all times Eastern and Pacific). Outside of prime time, it provides a slate of mostly general entertainment programming featuring mainly recent and older acquired programs.

### **News programming**

The the majority of Quibi's affiliates do not have their own autonomous news operations. News programming on Quibi affiliates – if the station carries any – is often outsourced to another major network affiliate in the market, especially if they are operated as part of a duopoly or management agreement. The scheduling of news programming often mirrors that of Fox stations, with morning newscasts (designed to compete with the national morning shows on ABC, CBS and NBC within the 7:00–9:00 a.m. timeslot; in duopolies, these are typically an extension of a sister station's morning newscast) and a prime time newscast within the 10:00–11:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific (9:00–10:00 p.m. Central/Mountain) time slot.

## Stations

Quibi has current or pending affiliation agreements with 203 television stations in over 185 television markets encompassing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the border regions of Canada. In some markets, these stations also maintain digital simulcasts on a subchannel of a co-owned/co-managed full-power television station.

Many of Quibi's affiliates include regional descriptors reflecting the station's primary broadcast area underneath the logo bug displayed during the network's programming (these descriptors are also used in the customized station identifications shown at the top of each hour between programs or during commercial breaks). Some stations either display customized logos using adapted versions of their current logo with the subchannel number below the main Quibi logo bug. Others display their callsign and city of license (and in some cases, the affiliate's virtual channel number) below the Quibi bug full-time in case the full-screen ID sequence malfunctions in some manner. ACME Networks began to re-brand some of its Quibi O&Os to closer associate them with their parent ACME stations, such as WLYT-TV, which became "ACME 46 Plus".

Although Quibi prefers that its local affiliates carry the entire schedule, some affiliates regularly pre-empt certain network programs in order to air morning and/or prime time newscasts produced by the station specifically for the subchannel or public affairs programs. Some of the major network affiliates that carry Quibi full-time use the affiliated subchannel as a buffer during network sports coverage, breaking news or severe weather coverage situations to carry regularly scheduled network and/or syndicated programming seen on its main channel.

## Schedule

### Afternoon

*syndicated programming*