Las Vegas – New streaming service Quibi on Wednesday offered a glimpse into its bid to win over smartphone customers, vowing to shake up the trade with unique packages lasting lower than 10 minutes.
Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg mentioned it was designed for younger life, providing episodes to be considered whereas in a queue or on a break at work.
“We goal to offer you massive tales in fast bites,” Katzenberg mentioned on the Client Electronics Present in Las Vegas.
He billed Quibi – which launches in April – as a tv transformation, benefiting from smartphone options corresponding to location, time of day, and pivoting from panorama to portrait screens.
Katzenberg mentioned all Quibi content material – from comedies to documentaries, sports activities and information – was unique and being produced “by the most important names in Hollywood.”
Created by Katzenberg, a longtime Disney government and co-founder of DreamWorks SKG, the app drew inspiration from Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code,” which has greater than 100 chapters averaging simply 5 pages every.
The concept behind the service that has the leisure world abuzz is to draw youthful viewers who’re all the time on the transfer.
Katzenberg mentioned the platform will deal with video storytelling like books, with longer tales damaged into quick chapters.
“We aren’t shrinking TV onto telephones,” mentioned Quibi chief government Meg Whitman, a former chief of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
“We’re creating the world’s first platform for cell video in fast bites.”
Main studios have pledged US$1 billion (S$1.four billion) in funding for the service, which has already attracted Hollywood names corresponding to Steven Spielberg, Guillermo Del Toro and Jennifer Lopez.
Quibi joins Disney+, HBO Max (AT&T), Peacock (Comcast) and Apple TV+ among the many gamers in a streaming warfare as Individuals more and more develop into “cord-cutters” – giving up costly, usually rigid cable packages for a extra a la carte on-line expertise.
Rivals additionally embody titans Netflix and Amazon Prime, which spend billions of dollars yearly on unique reveals.
Google-owned YouTube additionally battles for the eye of video-seeking smartphone customers.
Quibi boasts Google as a companion, saying it depends on the web big’s cloud computing energy, and Google’s Pixel telephones are being tuned to stream its reveals.
Quibi launches on April 6 and can cost $5 month-to-month for subscriptions that may embody adverts and $eight month-to-month for an ad-free model.