E V E R Y T H I N G
Jeffrey Katzenberg, like many of you, know just a bit what it’s like to be me. Well, I mean, if you ignore the fact that I’m not the founder of a massive studio and my bank account has never had more than two zeros post-hundreds-place in it (ya know, when I had one).
But that feeds into a number of problems people are having. Aside from everyone staying home, everyone’s staying home, including Katzenberg. Which is part of the reason why the platform he started with Meg Whitman, Quibi, is not doing too great. The app was designed to provide bite-sized entertainment to people on the go in 10 minute chunks. And since no one’s on the go, no one is really interested in those short-form shows.
And that’s despite having a number of shows boasting top-name Hollywood talent. And also the only one I can remember, that being the revival of Reno 911. Regardless, after its April 6th launch, the app dropped from the app store’s top 50 most downloaded apps almost instantly, now residing somewhere in the 120’s according to analytics firm Sensor Tower.
Also per the same source, despite the 90-day free trial, Quibi’s only seen downloads by about 2.9 million users. Quibi contends that the number is more like 3.5 million, though, with 1.3 million being active users. That’s not great numbers for an app that has about $1.8 billion sunk into it.
Katzenberg blames the virus. Per video interview with The New York Times:
I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus. Everything. But we own it.
Jeffrey Katzenberg
The one-time Disney Head and Dreamworks founder is not exactly thrilled with the numbers stated earlier:
Is it the avalanche of people that we wanted and were going for out of launch? The answer is no. It’s not up to what we wanted. It’s not close to what we wanted.
Jeffrey Katzenberg
However, when asked whether, knowing what he knows now, they would’ve launched the app when they did, he had this to say:
If we knew on March 1, which is when we had to make the call, what we know today, you would say that is not a good idea. The answer is, it’s regrettable. But we are making enough gold out of hay here that I don’t regret it.
Jeffrey Katzenberg
The idea of the app was that it would fill those in-between moments; commutes, sudden downtime, etc.Not only is that currently not the case, but most users wondered why the platform was solely limited to smart-devices, when they’d like to watch on their TV. And so, that’s a change that will soon be coming, for iOS users first.
There are a whole bunch of things we have now seen in the product that we thought we got mostly right, but now that there are hundreds of people on there using it, you go, ‘Uh-oh, we didn’t see that.’
Jeffrey Katzenberg
Aside from the above obvious points, Quibi’s had its fair share of lumps. They made a major bet on news programs being popular in the format. The Daily Essentials, as they were called, had minimal engagement. Also, tech company Eko accused them on infringing on trade secrets and patents they own for seamlessly allowing viewers to switch between horizontal and vertical viewing. In addition, they wound up accidentally giving away their user’s emails, a problem they fixed post-haste. They also had some shakeups at the top; notably, the departure of Megan Imbres from their top marketing executive position, bringing in former Dreamworks Animation president Ann Daly, to fill the position in the interim.
They also plan to scale back their marketing from the previously planned $470 million. There’s also a change in strategy from promoting the service as a whole, to highlighting some of their biggest shows.
Until we are in an environment where we can get a return on our investment, we are going to keep our powder dry.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, on marketing changes for Quibi
Nonetheless, the top brass at Quibi are reducing their projections for the year significantly. Moreover, Quibi is slowing down the pace of their releases, due to pretty much every form of professional television and film production currently being on hold.
For some reason, they asked Katzenberg as to whether or not TikTok’s current success gave him pause. This makes no sense, as most of TikTok is garbage, and Quibi at least has watchable content beyond people doing actual vocal impressions of pop culture characters (TikTok cannot say the same). But, regardless, his response:
That’s like comparing apples to submarines. I don’t know what people are expecting from us. What did Netflix look like 30 days after it launched? To tell me about a company that has a billion users and is doing great in the past six weeks, I’m happy for them, but what the hell does it have to do with me?
Source: The New York Times
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