Jeffrey Katzenberg is stepping down as chairman of the board of governors at the Motion Picture & Television Fund, where he and his wife Marilyn have been among its biggest boosters and fundraisers for three decades. His departure comes as the charitable organization celebrates its 100th anniversary.
The startup, headed by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, promised short-form content designed specifically for mobile phones, and investors poured $1.75 billion into the idea. The duo’s instincts about what would sell proved wrong.
The company said Wednesday that it would wind down its operations and plans to sell its assets. “Quibi is not succeeding,” its top executives, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, bluntly declared in a letter posted online. The video platform — designed for people who were out and about to watch on their phones — was one of a slew of new streaming services started to challenge Netflix over the past few years, most of which were part of much bigger tech and entertainment companies, like Apple and Disney.
Streaming service Quibi is exploring several strategic options including a possible sale, according to people familiar with the situation, as the company founded by Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg struggles to sign up subscribers in a competitive online-video marketplace.
Jeffrey Katzenberg’s short-form content platform has struggled to make an impact with bad reviews, lack of interest and legal issues swirling.
Two veteran executives with contrasting styles are launching Quibi, an on-the-go streaming service, during a pandemic. Its success hinges, in part, on whether the duo can overcome their sometimes clashing styles and leverage their more than 80 years of combined business experience. At its current pace, Quibi will sign up fewer than two million paying subscribers by the end of the app’s first year, a person familiar with its operations said, well under its original target of 7.4 million.
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Downloads of the $1.8 billion short-form streaming app, meant for phones, are paltry. “I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus,” Katzenberg said. “Everything.”
Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg says his and Meg Whitman’s new short-form mobile streaming service’s content is so good, there’s no way it can’t find an audience.
“We’re going up on a high wire and there’s no safety net underneath it,” says Jeffrey Katzenberg, the founder of the upcoming short-form video streamer that is paying top dollar and making star-friendly deals to counter questions about whether consumers will respond.
Quibi, the upcoming video service founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg and former HP CEO Meg Whitman, is getting two shows from Stephen Curry’s Unanimous Media as well as director Catherine Hardwicke. Katzenberg and Whitman announced the new projects at Variety’s Innovate summit in Los Angeles on Wednesday, where the duo also shared some additional details on the technology and roadmap of the service.
The longtime Hollywood executive sees a demand for high-quality bite-size content. Disney, NBC and Alibaba back his plan for NewTV — which is the working title — that will try to set itself apart from the competition by making and distributing programs mere minutes in length.
And that money is coming from some of the the biggest names in Hollywood — Disney, 21st Century Fox, Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures. Those briefed on Jeffrey Katzenberg’s venture describe it as a Netflix service for mobile devices — a subscription service that will deliver content across a variety of content verticals including news, sports and entertainment.
Since last year, the former DreamWorks Animation CEO has been making the rounds in Hollywood and at big industry events to pitch an ambitious new project, the holding company WndrCo. Among other things, WndrCo is building a global video platform for short- and mid-form content, which would be anchored by shows from some of the top Hollywood talent at production levels to rival HBO and Netflix.
Jeffrey Katzenberg has recruited former HP CEO Meg Whitman to run his mobile video venture. Whitman will serve as CEO of the company, NewTV, and will begin on March 1 in Los Angeles. Katzenberg has said he hopes to create a new type of serialized, mobile-first content through NewTV and has been actively searching for investors to pump $2 billion into the venture. He will serve as chairman of NewTV.
In Cannes to talk up his latest venture, WndrCo, Jeffrey Katzenberg says he’s found “a brand new Everest.” The company is getting into what he’s so far terming “New TV” destined for mobile devices in the form of shows with full story arcs, but limited to 6-10 minutes per episode. The target demo is the coveted 18-34 range and the plan involves incentives along the way for every stakeholder, including creatives. It will be built with a significant advertising component.
YouTube will be the primary platform on which we consume media in half a decade, dwarfing current television giants, according to Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation. He described YouTube as a fantastic platform for studios to discover new talent and said that companies should be looking to invest in it as soon as possible.
