A former boss of mine , someone who cultivate at a bequest cable telly distribution channel that starts with F and end with “ -ox News , ” first severalise me about Quibi last February .
“ It ’s raciness - sized telecasting . It ’s ply by Meg Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenberg ! It raised a few billion ! ”
If she was so excited about it , why had n’t I heard about it ? I mulled it over a minute and realized the result : she want to play there , I did n’t .
Photo: ROBYN BECK / Contributor (Getty Images)
To her , it was the best of all possible populace : well - funded , run by Boomers in Power , and innovative in a way that was n’t threatening . It was the obvious end game for user - generated subject : the users , in this case , would be world - notable histrion and the production calibre would be right smart better than a ring light and a selfie spliff .
But I had go through this kind of well - funded flameout before . It happened a few years ago with a inauguration calledClinkle . It happened whenrock starstried tostart tech companies .
It chance every prison term too much money and not enough sense gets together in the same room and plots their mutual death .
Quibi , which isset to shutterjust 10 months after its splashy launching , was the perfect good example of honest-to-goodness media grift . It took the good of modernistic substance abuser - generated capacity — some would say the worst — and packaged it in a room that look and smelled Hollywood . The destination , obviously , was to bewilder TikTok and YouTube and every other service that lets you upload curt videos and amass millions of follower and views . suppose the frustrated motion-picture show executives watching “ OMG I TOLD MY hubby I WAS PREGNANT WHILE WEARING A DINOSAUR COSTUME CAN’T STOP SHAKING ” get its 4 - millionth view and wonder why their grownup - budget movies and video shows were n’t hit . They had done film verite once before , with realness TV , correct ? Why could n’t they get back some of that magic ?
My camera operator buddyLoren Feldmanalways take down that studio spend grand or millions of dollar a minute on their shows . You do n’t get spanking dialogue , guaranteed laugh / cry line , and great VFX on a budget . There is an uncrossable distance between the best TikTok video and the worst web TV show . Traditional media is regiment , see , and massaged into what some would call perfection and others would call pap . one thousand thousand are expend on public relations for stars , plastic surgery , and fitness regimens . Everything about Hollywood , the good and the bad , cost money .
Quibi figured that if the kids could do it with a selfie stick and a ring light , the grownup could do it way well . Quibi desire to break with custom — within ground . They had a billion and a half dollar bill — enough to make 130 episode of Game of Thrones — and , in startup parlance , gave them a runway for a few years of cheap subject . They apparently did n’t pay join wages — the short videos came in just below the union requirement for length — and they could catch rise and falling stars on the flash . In little , they were doing what YouTubers did every daytime : rerun a little popularity through a machine that turns it into even less money . Unfortunately , the old methods that served them so well on backlots and Oscar parties just did n’t form when it came to collation - sizing garbage .
Quibi flush it because no one require to pay for a formalized bite - sized cognitive content experience . Just as magazine news media begat barren blogs , reality TV begat the TikTok star . These TikTok stars monetise themselves , make money on their own term , and maybe at some point in time , they ’ll descend together in a studio that is n’t just a planetary house where kids in bike short dance around . But that will happen organically and without the gimlet centre of some uncanny studio apartment exec watching over the surveillance organization .
In this time of the pandemic , we want to watch farsighted - bod telecasting . We want to find out television that has been knead and carefully shot and beautifully furnish . We desire Lovecraft Country , not an 11 mo short aboutsomeone ’s prosperous arm .
peradventure Quibi gave actor and producers and writers a chance to try out , to mess around . perhaps it was a hothouse of ideas . Maybe it could have pull round in a domain where everyone was still on the subway . But here ’s the magic trick : you may still check Netflix on the underpass and you may still watch TikTok . Both of those exist . There was no reason for anything to fall smack dab in the middle .
Quibi ’s Katzenberg was scared . His old universe was rapidly aging . He want to lend a hand to the new one ( palm outstretched , of course . ) The result , as we see , was an attack to squeeze money out of new models using old techniques . As those who are presently try out to monetize online media could tell him , the new consumer is a different breed from the youngster that bought countless tickets to Beauty and the Beast . Those kids produce up and they look out Amazon Prime . And , like the Beast , this new consumer will turn on you in a heartbeat if it knows you ’re out to slip the only treasure it has left in its unusual and twisted niggling creation : its time and attention .
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