Quibi: Free episodes, free trials, prices, shows and WTF is a quibi actually – CNET

Quibi, a mobile-only subscription video service that launched April 6 in the US and Canada, is yet another streaming service launching in a sea of new streaming services. But this one, at least, is a little different. An ambitious, risky, big-budget bet on mobile video, Quibi is staking $1.75 billion to make ultraexpensive, star-studded, short-form videos designed to be watched on a phone.

To lure people in, Quibi offered a 90-day free trial. That offer was set to expire Thursday, but as of early Friday, it's still available for new subscribers signing up in the app and it's still advertised on Quibi's website. Once Quibi's 90-day free trial offer ends, the free trial period for new members will narrow to two weeks.

To drum up people's interest in signing up while they still qualify for the 90-day trial, Quibi posted the first episodes of three of its series — Most Dangerous Game, The Stranger and Dummy — free to watch on YouTube. (CNET's story has links to watch the full episodes.)

By putting full episodes outside its app for the first time, Quibi is aiming to get more people interested in the service with the extended free period. While it may seem like a money-losing strategy, streaming services like Netflix and Spotify uniformly report that the longer a person uses the service, the less likely they are to quit it. So far, Quibi reportedly has more than 1 million registered users out of 3.1 million app downloads.

The full episodes on YouTube also give viewers the first chance to watch Quibi's big-budget programming on TVs for the first time. YouTube has apps for television streaming across a wide variety of devices and smart TVs.

Quibi would be a risky bet even in normal times. But it's also launching in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. The coronavirus, which causes the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, has upended the status quo around the world, locking down whole cities, states and countries, overwhelming health care systems and shutting down entire industries. Hollywood is no exception: Movie theaters are shuttered, film and television productions are on hold and big-budget films are delayed months.

People can watch Quibi at home, sure, but Quibi's bet on exclusively mobile, short-form video was based on the premise that people would gobble up these "quick bite" episodes while on the go. But coronavirus has locked millions of people inside their homes, stifling how often people are out and about.

Quibi leaders say they believe people still need short breaks for entertainment. Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was the head of Disney's movie division in the '80s and '90s and co-founded Dreamworks Animation, initially said the coronavirus' effect on people's viewing habits wouldn't necessarily be an advantage or a disadvantage for Quibi. It's just different.

And Quibi CEO Meg Whitman, the former chief of eBay and Hewlett-Packard, said Quibi is willing to change if customers demand it.

"If all of our users are saying, 'We really want to be able to watch this content on our big screen,' then we'll develop the capability to do that," Whitman said in an interview four days before launch. She also said Quibi is willing to release episodes in a bingeable bunch all at once like Netflix, if that's what best suits the needs of subscribers. (Quibi releases new episodes of each series every weekday.)

Now, nearly a month since launch, some of those changes are becoming reality. Quibi will start adding support to cast from mobile phones to TVs in May.

"The challenge was greater than I thought, than Meg thought, when we made the decision" to press forward with Quibi's launch in the pandemic, Katzenberg said this week in an interview.

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Quibi is also ramping up in the middle of a wave of new streaming services, as tech and media giants all rush to be the one shaping the future of video. That means Quibi will be competing for your subscription dollars against heavy-duty upstarts like Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus, Peacock and HBO Max, as well as established players like Netflix. And of course, Quibi faces a Goliath in YouTube, the pioneer of online short video that draws in more than 2 billion viewers every month.

Still, Quibi believes its unconventional strategy — very expensive, star-packed programming released in 10-minute-or-less episodes that you can watch only on mobile devices like your phone — will hit a sweet spot. It has the backing of all the major Hollywood studios and a seemingly endless litany of film, TV, music and sports stars making shows. It's also brought T-Mobile on board to offer free subscriptions to some wireless customers.

Quibi has recruited a who's who of stars to work on its programming, including Chrissy Teigen, Lebron James, Dwayne Johnson, Reese Witherspoon, Chance the Rapper, Kevin Hart, Jennifer Lopez, Idris Elba, Zac Efron, Tina Fey, Liam Hemsworth and husband-and-wife combo Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner (but on different shows), along with a bazillion others. It's also lured in big-name filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, Antoine Fuqua, Catherine Hardwicke and Ridley Scott to make series. Whitman has said Quibi has enough content built up to last until late November, despite the virus shutting down TV and movie productions worldwide.

So is Quibi worth your time and money? Read below for what we know so far, but basically: With a 90-day free trial still up for grabs, you can try it for months to see for yourself.

OK, WTF is a quibi?

Quibi with a capital "Q" refers to the service, and all-lower-case quibi is the word the company invented for its short-form episodes, which all run about 10 minutes or less.

It's a mashup of the words "quick bites," since the videos are supposed to be bite-size morsels of video.

But don't pronounce the end of quibi like the beginning of "bites." If you can rhyme the word "alibi" with "quibi," you're pronouncing this made-up word totally wrong. You're supposed to pronounce the end of quibi with a long e, like the end of "wasabi." Obviously.

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• Best live TV streaming service for cord-cutters in 2020

When is the release date?

Quibi launched April 6 in the US and Canada.

Quibi hasn't publicized its specific international expansion plans, but said some other countries will be able to get Quibi's ad-free US version if it's available in their app store, without giving specifics. So if you live outside the US and Canada, check your Google Play Store and Apple App Store for the Quibi app to see what comes up.

However, Quibi's leaders have said that Quibi was designed from the beginning to be a global service, with global rights to stream its shows. The company just hasn't provided any timelines for when international expansion will happen.

How much does Quibi cost?

Quibi's cheapest tier is $5 a month and includes advertising. Its ad-free tier is $8 a month. Quibi doesn't offer annual subscriptions.

Quibi offered 90-day free trials for people who sign up anytime in April. As of early May, that deal was still available. It can save you as much as $24. You can unlock the trial by downloading the app from the Quibi website and signing up for the service before its May 1 deadline.

Starting May 1, Quibi's free trial was set to narrow to two weeks.

To compare costs, Netflix — the world's dominant subscription video service, which never has ads — offers its cheapest subscription at $9 a month in the US, one dollar more. Disney Plus costs $7 a month in the US without any advertising, a buck cheaper.

And YouTube, of course, is free with ads.

In testing the Quibi app under embargo before launch, commercials were all so-called pre-roll ads — those that play before the show starts. And they were relatively brief. Quibi has said that the service will have about two and a half minutes of ads per hour.

And T-Mobile is offering a free subscription to Quibi's ad-supported tier to wireless customers who have two or more lines on a post-paid plan, in a deal called Quibi on Us. After a year of free Quibi, qualifying customers need to choose between whether Netflix or Quibi is included free with their wireless plan — you can't get both comped. (The Netflix deal is worth $9 a month, compared with Quibi's monthly value at $5.)

T-Mobile said that you have to sign up by July 7 to get the deal and that it applies to people with two or more voice lines at standard rates on Magenta and One plans with taxes and fees included — along with discounted First Responder, Military and Magenta Plus 55 plans. Small business customers with up to 12 lines also qualify.

What devices can stream Quibi?

You can watch Quibi only on mobile devices like phones or tablets. No TVs. No web viewing. Basically, Quibi designed to be watched in an app only on devices with screens that can easily rotate.

Quibi has apps for both Apple's iOS and Google's Android system. An app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch is available in Apple's App Store, and you can get the Android app in the Google Play Store.

Disappointed you can't watch this on TVs? CEO Whitman said Quibi was accelerating it work to let subscribers cast the service to televisions because so many people are stuck at home in the pandemic. That supports should be available to some members starting in May. But casting isn't as user-friendly as dedicated apps for devices like Roku or Apple TV, which are popular ways people stream to TVs. Before launch, Whitman said the company would be willing to widen its device support to bigger screens like TVs based on data once subscribers can start actually using the service.

What product features does the service include?

Quibi is loudly touting its mobile viewing technology called Turnstyle. It lets a program dynamically react when viewers flip between portrait or landscape mode. That means that no matter how you're holding your mobile device, the video will take up the full screen, rather than minimizing to a small section. For most shows on Quibi, that means the program was shot and edited to crop well when you flip to portrait, the most natural way to hold a phone screen.

But some programs are using Turnstyle in clever ways: A thriller series called Nest shows the filmed action of the story when you look at it in landscape — but when you rotate into portrait, you can see what's happening on the character's device while the story is playing out. So as a character watches the camera feed of her smart doorbell through her phone, you can choose to either watch the actress reacting to the footage as she sits on the couch, or you can watch what she's seeing on her phone in real time.

Beyond Turnstyle, here are some of Quibi's more routine product details:

• Quibi's highest image resolution is 1080p, so it lacks it Ultra HD or high-dynamic range formats that are very important for content you'd be watching on a television. Like most streaming services, Quibi has a ladder of lower resolutions that dynamically change to reflect whatever bitrate your device can handle.
• Quibi is meant as a personal service, so it doesn't allow a single account to have different profiles for different viewers.
• As such, Quibi also limits every account to one simultaneous stream. That's the same as Netflix's $9 basic account, but other services like Disney Plus allow as many as four people to be streaming from one $7-a-month account at the same time.
• Quibi has unlimited downloads to watch anything on the service offline.

How is Quibi releasing its shows?

Quibi has said it will have more than 50 titles available at launch. Every Quibi series will release new episodes every weekday until that series is complete — and some ongoing daily shows have episodes drop on the weekend too. CEO Whitman has said that Quibi won't be rigid about this release strategy, either. If subscribers demonstrate an appetite to binge, Quibi would be willing to drop full seasons at once, similar to Netflix.

Quibi has three categories of programming: Movies in Chapters, Unscripted and Docs and Daily Essentials. At launch, Quibi will have the first three episodes of its Movies in Chapters and Unscripted/Docs series available for mini-binges. Across these three categories, Quibi has said it will be releasing more than three hours of new programming every day.

Brand new series debut on Quibi every Monday. In the first year, Quibi will have 175 original shows, totaling about 8,500 episodes.

Of its three categories, Movies in Chapters are the service's scripted shows, typically big-budget projects with big-name talent to match. These are programs like Survive, a drama about a suicidal woman who finds a new will to live after surviving a plane crash, starring Game of Thrones' Sophie Turner. Another one is Most Dangerous Game, a thriller reimagining the classic short story starring The Hunger Games' Liam Hemsworth.

Quibi is making 35 of these Movies in Chapters this year, and the company has said it will release one new episode of Movies in Chapter daily on the service.

Unscripted and Docs are Quibi programming that are, well, unscripted shows and documentary series. It covers a range of reality-style shows; game shows and competitions; talk shows; food, travel and culture docs; and a variety of other genres.

Quibi has said it will release five episodes in the Unscripted and Docs category every day.

Finally, the company will be dropping 25 so-called Daily Essentials every weekday. They focus on news and information, as well as lifestyle programming like a daily horoscope, a recap of the previous night's late night shows and meditation videos. These are also shorter than Quibi's other kinds of programming; Daily Essentials are five to six minutes. The company has partnered with the likes of NBC News, the BBC, TMZ, Telemundo, Polygon and the Weather Channel to make Daily Essentials, as well as developing some originally.

Daily Essentials will have new episodes at least every weekday. Some titles release more than one episode daily, like an NBC News snippets that land twice daily; and other titles will drop new episodes on weekends too.

What can I watch?

CNET has a comprehensive list of Quibi's launch programming.

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