Just a little more than 6 months after it launched with a raft of short shows starring A-list talent, Quibi is shutting down.
Just hours after reports broke that the troubled streaming service had hired a restructuring firm, the Wall Street Journal reported the service would go dark. The news reportedly comes from investors who were on a call with founder Jeffrey Katzenberg about the future of the streamer
Quibi had problems from the outset, once it moved beyond the first step of raising a ton of money in venture capital. The doomed app pulled in $1.75 billion in investments pre-launch. That was enough to pique the interests of advertisers, who threw in over $150 million in ad buys. But the average viewer doesn't read the trades and Quibi's 10-minute television concept never caught on. The strangeness of the "quick bites" model also clashed with the COVID-19 crisis. There didn't seem to be much place for short shows meant to be watched on the go when everyone was stuck inside binging television as cities shut down. Â
While the company should be lauded for its efforts to increase representation on screen, the concept was perhaps too ill-conceived to survive. Twitter users (and Quibi's own talent)Â rushed to get off their final Quibi jokes in the wake of the news.Â
