Meg Whitman Says Quibi Won’t Compete for Time With Netflix, but They Will Compete for Entertainment Dollars
Quibi, the upcoming short-form streaming service, is set to launch on in the spring, and the company’s executives continue to reveal more and more information about the platform. During today’s Upfront Summit in Los Angeles, Quibi CEO Meg Whitman revealed that while they’re not competing with Netflix and other streamers for time, they’re definitely competing for customers’ dollars.
“I don’t think that we compete for time with the big streaming services … because only 10 percent of their viewing takes place on the mobile phone and virtually none of it takes place during the day. It’s mostly an evening or weekend experience,” Whitman said. “We do compete for entertainment dollars across a whole host of things you can spend money on — whether that’s gaming or streaming services.”
In addition, Whitman also revealed that because there are different spending habits between the older and younger generations — with the older generation inundated with other bills and the younger generations not willing to pay for much — they have specifically targeted 25- to 35-year-olds because the platform aims for a younger audience.
“The target audience is 18 to 44, the content bullseye is 25 to 35 and we think we’ll pick up seven years younger and seven years older. It is definitely a younger and millennial-based audience,” she said. “Our thesis is that every consumer product that has ever come into existence, there’s always been a premium version of it. What we like to say is that, we’re not YouTube or Facebook or Instagram stories. We’re Quibi and it’s a different level of content … We’re doing a completely different budget level, with a different level of stars, writers, directors and storytelling.”
Earlier this month, Whitman, along with Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and Quibi chief product officer Tom Conrad, attended CES 2020 to reveal more info about the service. In addition to premiering 175 new original shows and 8,500 quick bites of content, including comedies, dramas, dating shows and news in the year following its launch, the service will introduce a new innovation they call “Turnstyle,” which allows for seamless fullscreen viewing whether the consumer is holding their phone in landscape or portrait mode.
Quibi (short for quick bites) will launch on April 6 and focus on high-quality short form content that is designed to be watched on your smartphone. The mobile streaming streaming will offer two plans — $4.99 with ads and $7.99 without ads. The ad-supported product will include a pre-roll ad, as well as a one to two mid-roll ads depending on the length of the content.