Learning from Quibi's struggle

Article: "The fall of Quibi: how did a starry $1.75bn Netflix rival crash so fast?"
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jun/28/quibi-netflix-jeffrey-katzenberg-crash

Summary:

Quibi joined the streaming wars about 2 months before HBO MAX. Their business model assumed an endless appetite for entertainment streamed to customer's phones. They got massive funding. They got high-profile executives from Hollywood & Silicon Valley. They didn't provide support for Roku or Amazon Fire, focusing instead on short-form content on phones. They launched during the pandemic, and offered free trials.

The result? Luke-warm reviews. Subscriber numbers fell way below their projections. Its founder is blaming the pandemic. Their head of brand marketing left. As their 90-day free trial period expires, they're struggling.

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Meg Whitman will have no choice to split the company: Quibi Inc. and Quibi Enterprise

I guess T will probably buy Quibi, move those subs to HBO Max to boost the customer base, it will look good on paper to the shareholders...

Stankey only knows marginalization. Growth and spending isn’t in his vocabulary only contraction as in tightening of the bowls.

The QuiBi model was embraced two years ago by this familiar and well-compensated executive:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/business/media/hbo-att-merger.html

Worth a revisit given what we know now.

To be fair, comparing Quibi with HBO Max is a false equivalency. Quibi was heavily dependent on new and in-house productions for content, while HBO Max benefits from a pre-existing library of proven content including Warner owned movies, tv shows, cartoons, etc.

And really, by any measure, HBO Max ought to be a wild success. It has everything needed. Well, it is missing one thing: leadership with a vision and a plan to make it easy to use and affordable. Only AT&T could take everything HBO and Warner has and mess it up so spectacularly by over-pricing it, making it a horrible user experience, and tying it to a widely reviled company.

HBO Max may yet succeed, but it will be in spite of, not because of AT&T

Our wonderful leadership never learns anything. Ratty, Stinky and the Board of Misdirectors are perfect and always right and never make any mistakes. Nothing to learn at T. Where have you been at for the last decade?

Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

Learning from Quibi's struggle

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