With eyes on an April 2020 launch Quibi, a start-up company built around mobile apps and short form content hopes to carve a niche out of a landscape that is getting more crowded by the month. But it has good news on the horizon. Both CBS News and ESPN will make original series for the service.
According to Fierce Video, ESPN will be the exclusive U.S. multi-sport content provider for Quibi’s curated news and information programming, Daily Essentials. ESPN’s new Quibi show will feature daily episodes and breaking news.
The arrangement with CBS will include a 6 minute version of 60 minutes, apparently built around those with a considerably shorter attention span than the normal target audience. The program will be called 60 an 6.
As far as ESPN goes Quibi should provide a great platform for what is planned to be a sports highlight based show. According to the New York Times Quibi will pay ESPN to create the show. ESPN will retain ownership of it and will license it back to Quibi.
The whole idea of Quibi is that it can survive as a monthly paid service built on short bites of information and entertainment. This includes entertainment options from giants like Steven Spielberg and Antoine Fuqua. Spielberg though is certainly not throwing all of his streaming eggs into one basket. He will be behind new programming on Apple’s Apple TV Plus service which launches this November.
