“Quick Bites, Big Stories.”
Editor’s note: This article comes from the WeChat public account “Entertainment Unicorn” (ID: yuledujiaoshou) , author: Zhou Rui.
On April 6, the overseas short drama streaming platform Quibi was officially launched in the United States. On the first day of the launch, the number of Quibi Apple and Android mobile phone installation users reached 300,000, and the fourth place of the Quibi airborne APP ANNIE free list. There may be a gap between this start and streaming platforms supported by giants such as Disney +, Apple TV +, etc., but the “first shot” of the short drama platform has already started.
As early as 2018, two Hollywood gangsters Jaeger Whitman (formerly CEOs of eBay and HP) and Fury Kasenberg (formerly chairman of Disney Studios and CEO of DreamWorks) announced their strength When jointly creating Quibi, and using a mobile short video platform with a duration of no more than 10 minutes to enter the streaming market surrounded by the strong, the industry paid special attention to the Hollywood-backed star projects.
In two years, Quibi received $ 1.8 billion in financing from Disney, Warner Bros., Sony, NBC Universal, Wellcome Viacom, Goldman Sachs Bank, JP Morgan Bank, Alibaba and other companies, and successively announced that it will launch Steven Spielberg. Directors, celebrities such as Ge, Gilmour Del Toro, Sam Remy, Jennifer Lopez, Kevin Hart, Sophie Turner, etc.
In the midst of this, the global streaming market has some expectations for the emergence of Quibi. On the one hand, I hope it can open a new market entrance from giant platforms such as Netflix, Disney +, Apple TV +, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, HBO GO / NOW, etc. On the one hand, I hope it canThe completely different attributes of high-quality content show a different development path from the entertainment short video platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and Douyin.
So all expectations are condensed into a question. As a short film platform for mobile phones, can Quibi grow a new giant?
5-10 minute short film, How does Quibi attract users?
The first thing to understand now is how is Quibi different from other streaming or short video platforms?
When the name “Quibi” appeared in public for the first time in 2018, the two founders quickly explained the positioning of the platform. Quibi advocated providing young users with professional video content for a short period of time. The platform movies are mainly Hollywood professional The high-quality short video produced by the company has a playback time of 5-10 minutes. The video format is cropped (horizontal or vertical), which is more suitable for mobile phone playback, and platform content requires users to pay for subscription to watch.
At the same time, the founders initially set Quibi’s content output goals, “creating 5300 to 5400 episode products in 12 months”, “hundreds of original content launches per week”, and temporarily dividing Quibi There are 15 categories of original content, subdivided into dramas, variety shows, headlines, sports, variety shows, music news, etc.
These contents are roughly divided into three types. The first type of content is movies in chapters. Most of these types are high-quality high-quality productions with a duration of about two hours. The works are split into 7-10 minute chapters and short episodes. Covers different types of action, thriller, drama and so on. According to The Verge, this series of projects cost approximately US $ 7.5 million per integrated cost and as high as US $ 125,000 per minute, which is comparable to traditional film and drama production costs.
![Quibi, an overseas short drama platform, is online, with high-quality productsCan the short play incubate a]()
The second type of content is the unscripted series, which is relatively lighter than the chapter movies. Most of them are unscripted reality shows or documentaries controlled within 10 minutes, and the video topics covered are also more rich. The cost per minute is between US $ 20,000 and US $ 50,000.
The third type of content is daily essentials. This series is a 5-6 minute news program that gets news alerts from NBC, BBC, ESPN and other platforms. The cost of the program per minute is between US $ 5,000 and US $ 10,000.
It is understood that on April 6, 2020, when Quibi was launched, nearly 50 programs were launched on the platform, including the thriller short drama “The Most Dangerous Game” and “The Street Lights Up”, and the short variety show “Tricky Story”.
![Quibi, an overseas short drama platform, is online, can boutique short dramas incubate a]()
(List of some Quibi works)
From these contents, the public may simply understand Quibi as a short video, high-quality Netflix. Quibi adheres to the boutique route, aiming to provide users with high-quality fragmented content such as original boutique short dramas, short movies, short variety shows, and short documentaries at the cost and level of traditional Hollywood productions, trying to change the status quo of long video dominating the market. For example, Quibi has high hopes for the chapter of the film, and Frei Kasenberg believes that its meaning is “representing the third-generation film narrative.”
At this point, Quibi’s short dramas have different natures from the short episodes launched by domestic streaming video platforms. Domestic long and short video platforms