A research analyst believes Quibi is struggling to rival streaming platforms like Netflix because its content isn’t compelling enough and it doesn’t fill people’s time.
Quibi offers bite-sized episodes that never run longer than 10 minutes but unlike other platforms the shows are dropped periodically, which prevents people from binge-watching.
Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg claimed last week that the coronavirus stay-at-home orders are to blame for lack of interest in consuming short clips, intended for enjoying while waiting in line at the grocery store or on the commute to work. But an expert believes that it’s simply because nothing has made millennials want to trade in their cell phone time.
‘Quibi’s content isn’t bad, it’s perfectly fine. It’s just hard to get the attention of a new audience without very compelling content,’ Loup Ventures managing partner Doug Clinton wrote in a blog post on Friday.
‘Platforms like Netflix can get away with fine, at least for a little while, because they already have attention mindshare. To take attention mindshare, content needs to be compelling, and when you do get that attention, you have to keep it,’ Clinton added.
Loup Ventures managing partner Doug Clinton wrote in a blog post on Friday that Quibi shows aren’t compelling enough and are too short at under 10 minutes. Anna Kendrick, Sophie Turner, Liam Hemsworth, Tyler the Creator and Chrissy Teagen feature in the content (right)
Social media users have criticized Quibi’s short-form content and the wait for new episodes
Users cannot take screen shots to create viral social media memes like you can on Netflix
People complained that the only device to watch Quibi on is a cell phone. But the company is expanding options soon
Since Quibi launched April 6, it has been downloaded 3.2 million times in Apple Google Play app stores, according to Sensor Tower. Quibi executives told The New York Times that the figure is closer to 3.5 million. Sensor Tower also said its iPhone app store ranking dropped from #1 to #114.
They aimed to have 7 million subscribers in the first year. But active users are only about 1.3 million.
Quibi spent $1.8billion on launching and before the coronavirus pandemic estimated it would get $400million in revenue, including $250million from subscriptions in the first year.
They also projected a $550million loss in the first year.
A source recently told the Wall Street Journal that projections have not changed.
Netflix offers a 30-day free trial and Disney+ has offered up to a year free in partnerships with companies such as Verizon.
The Wrap reports that Quibi’s 90-day free trial, which was available until the end of April, helped an initial surge in downloads. In recent weeks, Quibi has been downloaded about 40,000 times per day.
While Katzenberg has claimed lockdowns have made those ‘in-between’ moments vanish, Clinton argues that they haven’t disappeared, ‘they were already spoken for’.
‘People may not be able to watch Netflix during an in-between moment, but they can watch Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc,’ he writes.
Clinton said in the blog that Quibi doesn’t allow people to develop an emotional response.
Quibi chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg (right) has blamed the coronavirus lockdowns after the platform didn’t take off as expected
‘Video games like Fortnite are richer through their interactivity. Emojis are richer than text. AR lenses are richer than just videos on Snapchat,’ he explained. ‘Epic shows like Game of Thrones or Westworld create richness through vast worlds and depth of story.’
He added that their content lacks the extremity that helps evoke emotion in politics, social media content, news media.
Clinton also said a lack of relevancy stunted the emotional response, which is often helped through the viewer feeling like they know the character or influencer.
Although Quibi has relied on stars to promote the content they feature in, Clinton said connection between Hollywood names and viewers is not as powerful as the relationship with social media personalities.
Clinton said that Quibi’s final mistake is that when they do get someone’s attention, the staggered release of content fails to keep it for long.
‘An advantage Netflix that exploits over traditional TV is that it releases episodes of original content all at once, and users can binge,’ Clinton writes. ‘When users binge, they build trust in Netflix and come back for some other content to binge again.
‘Episodic releases discourage bingeing, and platforms that use those types of releases have to hope that users are sufficiently interested in to remember to come back and watch again the next day or week.’
Users have expressed a multitude of reasons why Quibi doesn’t work for them.
One subscriber said he simply didn’t like the content.
‘I have checked [Quibi] out, and I’m not a huge fan,’ Morris Franco, a Brooklyn-based viewer, told The Wrap. ‘The app seems cool at first, but the content is horrible.’
Another said the short format of story-telling was too confusing.
‘8 minutes to tell a story doesn’t work,’ Harry Vanderhoof, 28, from Astoria, Oregon, told The Wrap. ‘I probably won’t watch once the free trial is over.’
Another expressed that same problem as many others on social media – it doesn’t allow people to constantly check Instagram while they’re watching a show.
‘I was watching it on my iPhone, and usually with other streaming services you can mirror [the content] to your TV. But there wasn’t a setting where I could watch it on my smart TV,’ Jhadira Sauceda, from Orange County, California, told The Wrap. ‘Sometimes I just want to hang out in my room and switch from watching on my phone to the TV.’
Los Angeles man Scott Prichard agreed: ‘It’s funny they say that it’s targeted at millennials [and Gen Z’ers] because like, we all do s**t on our phones while we watch Netflix. No one watches shows on your phone because then how the hell do you tweet?’
A research analyst said viewers are not able to develop an emotional bond with characters. Pictured left is Quibi offering The Stranger and right, a poster for the movie Flipped
Other critics have commented that Quibi disabling the option to share screen shots is stifling its popularity.
The creation of memes allows social media users to do the bulk of promotion for a platform – for example the Netflix Fyre Fest documentary’s Evian meme and the Baby Yoda memes from The Mandalorian on Disney+.
One Twitter user said that blocking people from sharing the ‘stuff their watching on Social Media is the most 2008 mistake you could make’.
Quibi recently said that iPhone users will soon be able to watch shows on smart TVs and that integrating WiFi-enabled TV casting technology into the app was always intended, however they are now speeding up the process.
Bosses at the platform also appeared to change their minds about a fan podcast focused on their content.
They sent a cease-and-desist order after ‘Quibiverse,’ vowed to ‘report on everything Quibi – the good, the bad, the unhinged.’
The podcast has since changed its name to Streamiverse, but after Quibi received backlash for it, Katzenberg appeared as a guest on the show.