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Hungry Viewers Aren't Taking Big Bites Of Quibi
Short-form video site Quibi launched on April 6th, 2020 (Photo:Quibi)
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In what is becoming 2020's rival to New Coke, Google Glass and the Facebook phone, the heavily-funded Quibi is struggling on multiple fronts: deficient subscriptions, poorly reviewed content, technical complaints, and unhappy advertisers.
The site's founders, Disney and DreamWorks veteran Jeffrey Katzenberg and eBay alumna Meg Whitman, promise a variety of changes to turn the platform around, including the elimination of one of Quibi's foundational features: that you can only use it on a mobile phone.
The service launched in early April, and even though Quibi attracted prominent actors (Liam Hemsworth in "Most Dangerous Game," Sophie Turner in "Survive"), and $1.8 billion in funding, Quibi only could sign up a fraction of its projected subscribers, with 1.5 million on board so far. "They are below our very high expectations," Whitman told me in an interview today.
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