fujishig

Given the concept, I'm surprised they kept 10% of the base when it came time to pay. Probably at least half just forgot to unsubscribe in time.

Decker

It's like I'm not even here!

DJariya

The content isn’t bad as I’ve said before in this thread. But this service was always going to be a really tough sell with it initially being mobile only and the price points.

and given the situation we are in with the pandemic with job losses many don’t have that much disposable income.

fujishig

Revenge for post 143 being an excerpt of what I posted in post 142...

Decker

It's not bad, it's just....really truncated. And the time frame doesn't really work.
Did you watch the Clippers docu-series? It didn't feel like a series at all, but like a 30 for 30 broken up with 12 or 14 commercial breaks. It didn't flow right, none of the "episodes" felt complete. The moment there was any sort of momentum in the story it got stopped cold. I don't think anyone wanted that from a streaming service. The idea of short episodes sounds like a good one, but in reality it just feels limited, artificially so.
I did like the short news features, and might have liked the sports updates if, you know, there were any sports going on. But the rest was pretty disposable, though I did like Shape of Pasta enough.

DJariya

I did watch the Clippers documentary. You’re right it felt very choppy and poorly edited with the weird cut off points.

I liked Most Dangerous Game with Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz. But that felt like a movie chopped up into 12 chapters.

I used Quibi the most for the BBC, NBC and ESPN news updates. But the price point wasn’t worth it just to keep it for those.

Trevor

I still have a few days left; have watched the first episodes of Most Dangerous Game and some thriller/kidnapper show. Both were decent, and perhaps I’ll binge a bit the next few days.

Red Hood

The bold part is their main issue. Serialized content has a pacing to tell a story and the way is being done in Quibi basically kills that. The way the Clippers doc was cut was awful and a key point of why I'm not renewing after the free trial.

Hokeyboy

Disney+ has content from Walt Disney Feature Animation, Disney Channel, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, Fox (movies and TV), and National Geographic.

Quibi has... Chrissy Teigen? Whoever she is?

And YouTube is free (with ads) with endless content and penetration.

I can't imagine where 4-quadrant consumers would prefer to flock towards...

"PENETRATE PENETRATE PENETRATE!"

Decker

Here is an interesting and robust discussion on the Bill Simmons Podcast from 7/8 - an interview with former editor in chief of The Hollywood Reporter, Matthew Belloni all about Quibi and all the things they did wrong (and they never even got to price point or too-short seasons). They do talk about that Clippers documentary and what a terrible idea it was to chop it up into less than ten minute segments. Belloni also points out something very obvious that I never articulated before -- If I only have 10 minutes, I can just watch ten minutes of a program and then watch the rest later. There's no reason to limit a program to a ten minute run time. They also talk about "Quibi porn" which is the obsession of reading stories about how badly Quibi screwed up. It's a thing now.
Anyways I think it's a good listen. Starts at about 54:00
https://open.spotify.com/episode/02Qf9QISOr0ntzMZpV4eQh

Jay G.

I've thought that since the service launched, especially with the "shows" that are basically cut up movies. However, in some ways, Quibi's pre-cutting up of a show is worse for the supposed commuter market they were going after than the commuter starting and stopping when/where they want.

Say I'm a commuter with a 15 minute window to watch video during my commute. Quibi episodes are typically 8-10 minutes, which means if I only watch one, I still have several minutes of time I have to fill, so the Quibi length was wrong for me. Or, I try to watch two, and I have to stop the 2nd episode at an arbitrary point anyway, just like I would've if it had been a single video, so the Quibi length was still wrong. Quibi was hoping people would have perfect "bites" of time to watch a single episode at what they proscribed as the best episode length, and then be content to wait another day to watch another bite.

It'd be like if you were reading a book on a Kindle, but instead of letting you start and stop where you want, it issued a new chapter of the book each day.

It's almost like the service was thought up by a filmmaker who was watching commuters watch videos during their commute, and got irked by how they stopped the movies/shows at arbitrary points, and thought, "wouldn't it be great if we cut up a film to start/stop at the points we want consumers to start and stop at?" It was on one hand acknowledging the new reality that certain consumers weren't watching material in full but in smaller chunks, but on the other hand ignoring the realities of why those consumers do that in order to provide a balm to the filmmakers so that they could still dictate when/where the bites started and stopped. Then they targeted those commuter consumers exclusively, and ignored all the other consumers who prefer watching content on their PC or TV. Even if a pandemic hadn't killed commuting right at the time this service launched, I think its main premise was so antithetical to how even its intended targeted audience watched content that I don't think it would've caught on all that well. Viewership numbers may have been better the first few months, but I think the dearth of content (no back catalog, not a lot coming out each day) and awkward chopping of said content would've doomed it in nearly any situation.

Hokeyboy

I listened to Audible or podcasts during my daily commute (pre-COVID). None of them were in 10-minute "chunks". Somehow I managed.

Like that above article implied, this whole thing reeks of what clueless Boomers THINK Millennials/Gen-Z'ers prefer.

fujishig

It doesn't make much sense to really create something that works in their forced format. Apparently after a few years you get the rights back to your stuff free and and clear. If you make something that takes full advantage of the 10 minute format, how are you going to sell that on other media? So all of those cool features like "hey, you turn your phone and it's a different perspective" may seem cool but once Quibi shutters what use is it? Much simpler to have them give you money to get your C-tier idea out there then recombine and try to sell it later.

But yeah, it's cluelessness and a reliance on gigantic names to drive investors and a business. It's like if Twitter decided to publish novels but chopped them up into tweets and charged for them. Yeah you could do it, but it completely misses the point of why people use twitter (and this comes from someone who doesn't really understand why people use twitter: most of the time it seems like people write multiple tweets to get around the character limit, so it's just a platform and the whole concept is basically limiting it)

fujishig

At the very least, they seem to have money to burn in advertising their shows.

Decker

I wonder how many subscribers they have monthly now.

Noonan

Probably not yet enough to even cover whatever they paid Kevin Hart for his whatever they call their content (show? Movie?) along with the ads. Unless he was paid in company equity.

DJLinus

Well, they got one paid month out of me. I didn't even boot the app up until a day before my trial ended. I watched as much Reno 911 as I could, but I misinterpreted the date when payment was due and didn't cancel my trial in time. So they got my $5. I resumed my Reno binge last night, the day before my billing cycle starts. Watched all of it that's available - kinda bummed that Terry never showed up - and started Flipped and the Princess Bride thing. But I made sure to cancel before I went to bed.

Unless they get some show that I absolutely have to see or offer a trial that includes past customers, that's the end of my Quibi experience.

DJariya

Finished my second free trial with Quibi. Today was my last day. It would have renewed tomorrow.

I already mentioned in The Fugitive thread a week or so ago that I watched that. Plus, I also finished Most Dangerous Game. I liked Most Dangerous Game, but the ending was pretty predictable. It the season arc did wrap up completely, but left things open for a season 2, which I know they are planning.

DJariya

For anyone interested next Tuesday, T-Mobile is giving out a 6 month free trial to Quibi.

The fine print says you must be a new subscriber. I know most here refuse to subscribe to this, so I don't expect much interest. In case you weren't aware, you can cast Quibi from your Apple or Android device your TV now. I was able to watch The Fugitive and Most Dangerous Game as I said above recently.

dex14

Already looking to sell:
https://deadline.com/2020/09/quibi-e...7x75xRr1bz54_U

Decker

I grabbed the offer, but since I was an inital subscriber I think I can't get in on this. Even if I used a different email account, it was tied to my Google Play account before so I don't think there is any way I could swing this even if I tried to subscribe from my iPad or something.

DJariya

So I got an email invite last week to a virtual screening of one of the Quibi shows "When the streetlights go on" It was 10 episodes, but is being screened on my computer as a 85 minute movie.

Gofobo sent me the invite, so I went ahead and accepted. Why not? At least it's the whole thing.

DJariya

https://www.engadget.com/quibi-katze...033804199.html

Quibi may shut down. And they are looking to sell off their content.

Twitter

Decker

It's legitimately hard to blow through $2B in 6 months. Nicely done Quibi.

DJariya

The new HBO Max original movie....."The Fugitive" starring Kiefer Sutherland.