The 199 days that doomed Quibi: How $1.75 billion couldn't save the most hyped app of the year from a pandemic and apathetic users
Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman merged Hollywood and Silicon Valley connections, but it wasn't enough to save Quibi.This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers.Mobile content app Quibi, backed by $1.75 billion and some of Hollywood's top names, launched in April and died in October.
Seth Doane — a CBS news correspondent helming a special version of the "60 Minutes" news program being created exclusively for Quibi — fell ill with COVID-19 that month, and 16 members of the show's team tested positive. The virus was affecting everything. This account of Quibi's six-month failure to launch is based on Business Insider's own reporting, as well as reporting from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Deadline, The Information, and other news outlets.
Quibi did not respond to Business Insider's request to make Kaztenberg and Whitman available for comment.Disney Plus has shown that international audiences are key to scaling a streaming business quickly. Experts unpack the hurdles legacy-TV companies face as they go global.The one thing Whitman and Katzenberg were missing was a birth date that put either of them anywhere near the 25-to-35-year-old age group that Quibi defined as the "bullseye" of its audience.
One media banker told Business Insider in January that investors piled in not because they were enamored by the company's pitch, but because they feared missing out when they saw competitors writing checks. The Katzenberg aura was working its magic. Big Hollywood names, from Steven Spielberg to Idris Elba to Chrissy Teigen, signed up on the content side — a formidable talent roster that didn't come cheap.
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