Quibi—the upcoming streaming service offering millennials content that can be viewed in 10 minutes or less—has joined forces with T-Mobile ahead of its April 2020 launch. Under the agreement, Quibi will be part of a T-Mobile offering, giving the streaming service a broad distribution platform as T-Mobile is the third-largest mobile phone network with 83.1 million customers.
Information on whether T-Mobile customers will receive discounts or whether the Quibi app will be pre-installed on T-Mobile phones has not yet been revealed. Financial terms were also not disclosed.
T-Mobile has been looking to get into entertainment as its competitors have expanded their reach into Hollywood. AT&T is set to launch HBO Max in spring of 2020 as well and Verizon has also attempted their hand at streaming, launching the Go90 video platform in 2015, but shutting it down in 2018.
Quibi, which was started by DreamWorks founder, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and former eBay CEO, Meg Whitman will go for $4.99 with ads and $7.99 without. The service has already started aggregating content for their platform, with ESPN and CBS as some of their content partners.
ESPN will be the exclusive U.S. multi-sport content provider for Quibi’s curated news and information programming, Daily Essentials. The show, exclusively on Quibi, will feature daily episodes and breaking news covering the biggest stories in sports. Their partnership with CBS will bring a more condensed version of 60 Minutes titled 60 in 6, which will offer the same gripping news content as the original, but will do so in only six minutes. This short-form version will have separate stories and different correspondents than the show veterans who appear on the Sunday night version on CBS.