According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, the short-form video streaming service Quibi will shut down after less than a year. The report says that Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg has spent the day calling investors to inform them of the shutdown.
Notably, the shutdown comes just 24 hours after Quibi debuted its Apple TV application…
Quibi launched in April of this year, but despite raising $1.75 billion in capital, it has failed to garner mainstream viewership. The idea of the service was that the shows would be divided into short-form “quick bites” and would be formatted to watch on an iPhone display in portrait orientation.
Today’s report from The Wall Street Journal says that Quibi hired a restructuring firm to “value its options” in recent weeks. The firm recommended a list of potential ideas, including that the company shut down.
The Information has also reported that Quibi will communicate its plans to investors and employees today, with one “very likely possibility” being that the company will shut down.
On Wednesday, Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg called investors to tell them he is shutting the service down, some of the people said.
In recent weeks, Quibi hired a restructuring firm to evaluate its options, the people said. The firm recommended the options to the board of directors this week, a list that included shutting the company down.
Shutting down Quibi obviously wasn’t the first choice for Katzenberg. The media executive had spent several weeks shopping Quibi around to various companies about a potential sale. A report earlier this month said that Quibi had even approached Apple about an acquisition, but Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Internet Services, wasn’t interested.
Just yesterday, Quibi released an all-new application for the Apple TV. In and of itself, the release of an Apple TV application was a stark reminder that Quibi’s goal of being a smartphone-only service had failed.
