Quibi Reveals When the Streaming Service Will Officially Shut Down

Quibi revealed the day that the ill-fated streaming service is shutting down. Of course, the announcement of the platform closing it’s doors came down earlier this week. A lot of media wondered what exactly went wrong for the hyped short-form video content app. When talking to Jeffrey Katzenberg, the lead executive on the project, it becomes clear that timing or just sheer bad luck has a lot to do with it. But, there are other factors at play as well. Were there a lot of people looking for these kinds of shows and videos? How much different was it going to be than Snapchat Shows? On a more fundamental level, viewers have been conditioned over time to watch their favorite content in familiar formats. Could this bedrock change to the formula worked against Quibi from the word go? All of these are questions to ponder.

“Quibi has made the difficult decision to wind down,” reads the FAQ section of the platform. “We anticipate that the service will end streaming on or about December 1, 2020. We appreciate the support we have received from our customers and want to thank you for giving us an opportunity to entertain you. If you have any questions or need assistance in any way, please contact us at help@quibi.com.”

In a post on Medium, Katzenberg and Meg Whitman tried to explain where they were coming from to their employees.

“Our goal when we launched Quibi was to create a new category of short-form entertainment for mobile devices. Although the circumstances were not right for Quibi to succeed as a standalone company, our team achieved much of what we set out to accomplish, and we are tremendously proud of the award-winning and innovative work that we have produced, both in terms of original content and the underlying technology platform,” they argued. “Over the coming months we will be working hard to find buyers for these valuable assets who can leverage them to their full potential.”

Then began some speculation for why things went wrong, “Quibi is not succeeding. Likely for one of two reasons: because the idea itself wasn’t strong enough to justify a standalone streaming service or because of our timing. Unfortunately, we will never know but we suspect it’s been a combination of the two. The circumstances of launching during a pandemic is something we could have never imagined but other businesses have faced these unprecedented challenges and have found their way through it. We were not able to do so.”

Did you enjoy Quibi shows? Which one was your favorite? Let us know down in the comments!