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From a variety article. "Actually, Quibi doesn’t own any of the big-budget premium content for which it has shelled out upwards of $100,000 per minute. The com

by pg_bot 6y ago

From a variety article. "Actually, Quibi doesn’t own any of the big-budget premium content for which it has shelled out upwards of $100,000 per minute. The company has seven-year licenses on its short-form series; after two years, content owners have the right to assemble the shows and distribute them elsewhere." If they don't own the content what they hell did they spend 1.7 billion dollars on?! https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/quibi-considers-shutting-down-jeffrey-katzenberg-meg-whitman-1234812313/ https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/quibi-considers-shutti...

hbosch 6y ago
You have to assume the strategy here was along the lines of: offer insanely creator-biased production contracts to get A-listers to participate in this awful medium, grow the user base, eject the early bait content and transition over years to a more Netflix Original/Amazon Studios model.
adrr 6y ago
So they paid $1mm a 10 minute clip but don’t own the rights. Netflix pays that type of money for their their shows but owns the rights. Stranger things season 1 was $6mm an 60 minute episode.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  Stranger things only has 1 b list celebrity. I think quibi was banking on all the a listers in their content.
Traster 6y ago
They own the right to distribute it for 2 years. For everything that isn't Seinfeld or Friends, 2 years probably is 99% of the revenue. As long as Quibi does a decent job of selling those licenses they'll probably recover some of their investment. Oh, and by the end of 2 years Quibi will either be bankrupt or a $100b company, so it's not like it mattered to Quibi.
- pg_bot 6y ago
  In my experience, $100b companies tend to be owners of things and not renters. Why would you pay multiple times for something when you were the ones who took the biggest risk in creating it?
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    > you were the ones who took the biggest risk in creating it? They weren't the ones though. They had a lot of investors who swallowed this (flawed) business model whole and decided to bankroll it. The people at Quibi don't have to care and likely got away with a decent chunk of $$$ regardless of the outcome. Sometimes I wonder if I should actually attempt all the business/project ideas I don't think would ever work. Dress it up with some marketing and a "good" pitch deck and let some suckers bankroll it. Best case scenario I'm a multi-millionnaire, worst case I've still got enough to retire on and it seems like the industry doesn't see these kinds of astronomical failures as a bad thing so I don't even have to sacrifice my career/reputation.

by pg_bot 6y ago

hbosch 6y ago

You have to assume the strategy here was along the lines of: offer insanely creator-biased production contracts to get A-listers to participate in this awful medium, grow the user base, eject the early bait content and transition over years to a more Netflix Original/Amazon Studios model.

adrr 6y ago

So they paid $1mm a 10 minute clip but don’t own the rights. Netflix pays that type of money for their their shows but owns the rights. Stranger things season 1 was $6mm an 60 minute episode.

colinmhayes 6y ago
Stranger things only has 1 b list celebrity. I think quibi was banking on all the a listers in their content.

Traster 6y ago

They own the right to distribute it for 2 years. For everything that isn't Seinfeld or Friends, 2 years probably is 99% of the revenue. As long as Quibi does a decent job of selling those licenses they'll probably recover some of their investment. Oh, and by the end of 2 years Quibi will either be bankrupt or a $100b company, so it's not like it mattered to Quibi.

pg_bot 6y ago
In my experience, $100b companies tend to be owners of things and not renters. Why would you pay multiple times for something when you were the ones who took the biggest risk in creating it?
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  > you were the ones who took the biggest risk in creating it? They weren't the ones though. They had a lot of investors who swallowed this (flawed) business model whole and decided to bankroll it. The people at Quibi don't have to care and likely got away with a decent chunk of $$$ regardless of the outcome. Sometimes I wonder if I should actually attempt all the business/project ideas I don't think would ever work. Dress it up with some marketing and a "good" pitch deck and let some suckers bankroll it. Best case scenario I'm a multi-millionnaire, worst case I've still got enough to retire on and it seems like the industry doesn't see these kinds of astronomical failures as a bad thing so I don't even have to sacrifice my career/reputation.