Quibi -- a star-studded, mostly mobile streaming service that struggled to keep up with its own hype -- will shut down, the company said Tuesday, a flameout coming less than seven months after it launched. Quibi said subscribers will receive separate notifications about the final date they can watch the service, without specifying any timeline for when the service itself will go dark.
Though the company has enough money to keep operating for a "significant period of time," it's opting instead to make an exit "with grace," CEO Meg Whitman said in a press release. It'll shop its assets around to see if anyone wants to buy them over the coming months, and then it'll return cash to its shareholders.
"Quibi was a big idea, and there was no one who wanted to make a success of it more than we did," Whitman and founder Jeffrey Katzenberg said in a joint open letter. "Our failure was not for lack of trying; we've considered and exhausted every option available to us."
The leaders acknowledged that Quibi's doom was probably sealed by some combination of its timing in the coronavirus pandemic and a flawed premise that a service like Quibi could ever thrive as a standalone business, but they were contrite about their failure.
"All that is left now is to offer a profound apology for disappointing you and, ultimately, for letting you down," Whitman and Katzenberg wrote in the letter.
Quibi launched in the US and Canada in April as a service designed for watching on the go -- just as swaths of North America were locking down because of the COVID pandemic. Its timing was one of several misfortunes and flawed strategies that kept the service from reaching its ambitious growth goals. The company's mobile-only scheme also underestimated viewers' interest in watching on TVs. Quibi's initial design didn't allow for easy sharing on social networks, stunting virality and word of mouth. And it was hit with a lawsuit from interactive-video company Eko, which claimed Quibi's rotating-screen technology was a rip-off of its own. (Quibi rejected those allegations.)
The company hoped its unconventional approach -- very expensive, star-packed programming released in 10-minute-or-less episodes that you can watch only on phones or mobile devices -- would find a sweet spot in a streaming landscape crowded with Netflix, Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus, Peacock and HBO Max. And of course, Quibi faced a Goliath in YouTube, the short-video specialist that's already drawing in more than 2 billion viewers every month.
It was audacious ambition, but the company had a huge war chest, big-name leadership and an eye-popping bill of talent involved. Founded by Katzenberg, who was head of Disney's movie division in the '80s and '90s and co-founded DreamWorks Animation, Quibi raised $1.75 billion from investors including every major Hollywood studio. CEO Whitman is the former chief of eBay and Hewlett-Packard.
Quibi's talent roster is a who's who of Hollywood, including Chrissy Teigen, Lebron James, Dwayne Johnson, Reese Witherspoon, Chance the Rapper, Kevin Hart, Jennifer Lopez, Idris Elba, Zac Efron, Tina Fey, Liam Hemsworth and husband-and-wife combo Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner (but on different shows), along with innumerable others. It also lured in big-name filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, Antoine Fuqua, Catherine Hardwicke and Ridley Scott to make series.
Watch this: Quibi's video tech hopes to dazzle
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