| The trend lines are there: People, especially young people, are watching more and more video on their phones. The business of Hollywood is racing toward delivery of video via the internet—upending old models of studios, seasons, theaters, everything. And advertisers aren't sure where to spend their dollars to reach potential customers. As I write this week on Backchannel, a Hollywood big shot and a tech business stalwart have a plan to take advantage of all that. Quibi, a company started by former Disney and Dreamworks mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg with ex-eBay boss Meg Whitman as its CEO, plans to transmit short squibs of professionally made video to phones only. The company, with $1 billion in investment and $150 million in ads pre-sold, spins up in April with shows from A-listers like Steven Spielberg, Catherine Hardwicke, Idris Elba, Chrissy Teigen, Kevin Hart, and on and on. Everything from new NBC news shows to Teigen as a Judge Judy for a new era to Cribs, but for dogs. (That last one is called Barkitecture.) Oh, and every Quibi show has two versions, one for portrait and one for landscape. That tech is called Turnstyle; it's pretty cool. But is it cool enough? Nobody knew what people wanted to watch on television before mobile phones, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, YouTube, Hulu, and the dozens of weirdly named apps downscreen on your smart TV. Now that the business is atomizing and recombining like DNA in a mad scientist's bioreactor, no one knows what people will watch or how they'll watch it. Maybe they want glossy "quick bites" on their phones. Maybe they want The Mandalorian. Quibi is the latest high-powered attempt to find out. Adam Rogers | Deputy Editor, WIRED |
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