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State of the Screens

Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi Is Ready to Launch, but Will Viewers Bite?

By April 10, 2020No Comments

Key details for Quibi:
1) 
Quibi is short for “quick bites”
2) Launched April 6th
3) Free for 90 days
4) Free for 1-year for certain T-Mobile customers
5) The target audience is 25-35-year-olds
6) $1.75B in capital raised
7) 256 employees

Daily time spent with mobile video (YoY growth) according to eMarketer:
1) 
2017 – 35 (↑ 13%)
2) 2018 – 37 (↑ 8%)
3) 2019 – 40 (↑ 7%)
4) 2020P – 42 (↑ 6%)
5) 2021P – 44 (↑ 5%)

Years from initial capital raise to $1B according to Pitchbook:
1) Quibi – 2
2) ByteDance (the owner of TikTok): 5
3) Spotify: 7
4) Hulu: 9

Key details for Quibi content:
1) 50 shows at launch
2) 175 shows are planned
3) 9,500 episodes in the first year
4) 7-10m per episode
5) 25+ episodes added daily
6) $1B already allocated for content
7) $100K/minute average development cost w/ a maximum of $6M/hour

Key details for Quibi revenue model:
1) $5/month w/ ads; $8/month without ads
2) 1 pre-roll ad per episode (<5m video = 10s ad; 5-10m video = 15s ad)
3) 2.5m of advertising per hour
4) 20M subscribers by 2024
5) 75% of users will have ad-supported tier
6) They are seeking $15-25M upfront advertising commitments from companies such as P&G
7) $150M+ in upfront ad commitments

Quick math on Quibi advertising:
1) 20M paid users by 2024
2) 50% w/ ads
3) 15M paid users w/ ads
4) 2.5M of advertising per hour
5) $35 CPM for 15s ad
6) 10 15s spots/hour
7) $0.40 in ad revenue/hour
8) $665M revenue from advertising
9) $44.33/user/year in ad revenue
10) $3.69/user/month in ad revenue
11) 127 hours/year of viewing w/ ads/user
12) 11 hours/month of viewing w/ ads/user

What will ads look like?  Sara Fischer at Axios has you covered!

Video: Meg Whitman Interviewed by Mark Suster | Upfront Summit 2020

Podcast #1: Jeffrey Katzenberg’s $1.75 billion bet on Quibi

Podcast #2: Quibi CEO Meg Whitman Wants Your In-Between Moments

More #1: As Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi Races Toward Launch, Will a Changed World Help or Hurt?

More #2: Quibi Reviews: The Good, the Bad & the Meh

More #3: Inside Quibi’s advertising strategy

Michael Beach

Michael Beach is the Chief Executive Officer of Cross Screen Media, a media analytics and software company that enables marketers to plan, activate, and measure CTV and linear TV at the local level. Michael is also the founder and editor of State of the Screens, a weekly newsletter focused on video advertising that is a must-read for thought leaders in the advertising industry. He has appeared in such publications as PBS Frontline, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Axios, CNBC and Bloomberg, and on NPR’s Planet Money podcast.