The first rule of Quibi: You don’t talk about Quibi. The second rule of Quibi: Fine, you can talk about Quibi, but you can’t, like, tell anyone that you’re talking about Quibi. A podcast recently learned the rules the hard way when they received a cease-a-desist from the new billion-dollar streaming platform, per an interview that the creators had with Leigh Blickley at HuffPost.
Rob Dezendorf and Danielle Gibson started a show formerly called Quibiverse, a fan space to discuss the various “quick bite” content offered by the new streamer. However, the creators say that after 17 episodes, they were sent a cease-and-desist. Per Dezendoorf: “They were like, ‘Well, you can’t use the name Quibi, you can’t tell anyone that you’re about Quibi, you can talk about Quibi, but no one can know through your title and you can’t have any artwork that resembles our stuff.’” Gibson added: “It just felt so surreal to get a cease-and-desist from a billion-dollar company, about our fan podcast, in the midst of a global health crisis.”
The podcast has responded to the order by changing its name—you can now call them Streamiverse—and its objective, switching from a largely complementary show to a podcast that is, in Gibson’s words, “strictly about spite and revenge.” Unable to resist a good Tiger King reference, Dezendorf described the now-fraught relationship by saying, “We consider ourselves the Joe Exotic to Carole Baskin [in this case].”
The timing of such a preventative measure is odd not only because of the pandemic, but also because the mobile-driven platform could use as much positive press as it can muster: Despite an impressive roster of A-list involvement, the week two metrics show a lack of engagement. Also, the one viral moment the internet has seen from the platform came from the golden arm episode of 50 States Of Fear, which has only sparked jest and confusion. As of now, Quibi has yet to comment on the order.
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They should get Larry David on the spite podcast
Spitecast?
Does Larry David even drink Sprite?Oh.
He’ll step right up into Quibi’s asshole.
“Please don’t do any positive word-of-mouth publicity on our behalf, thanks. We’re trying very hard to hide that our network is actually a very complex Producers-style scheme to tank as quickly as possible, as part of some billion dollar-level money laundering activities.”
I think there is a 50/50 chance that this is not a joke.
Spring time for Quibi.
LOL
Somewhere in the company is an irate tech developer who is now planning to blow it all up just like the outraged Nazi playwright.
“You made a fool out of ‘Dishmantled’!”
Alright, enough. Fuck this goddamn thing. I can’t wait until it goes tits up in a month. From all of what anyone’s seen of it, Quibi is the MoviePass of streaming services. Decent concept, impossibly terrible execution.
Decent concept? I don’t agree. If you have ten minutes of time while eating or standing on a grocery store line, open the news, listen to a podcast or music, or watch a cat video or something. People shouldn’t need to pay a subscription service to effectively kill ten minutes while they’re “on the go.” I think there’s a reason no one really cares about this and it’ll die, and it’s not JUST COVID19 (though that sure helps).
That’s why I said decent, not good. I’m not opposed to entertaining shorts. I watch YouTube videos and clips on social media that probably aren’t too much longer than the average piece of Quibi content all the time. If some celebrities want to make shorts that are entertaining, then cool, let’s see them.But there are two things about it that don’t work – the fact that it’s a subscription model, and the fact that none of it needed to be done anywhere outside of YouTube. Couple those two things in with the fact that they launched at the absolute worst time possible – at the beginning of a global pandemic when people want to do nothing but hole up and watch a whole lot of content that is longer than a few minutes – and it’s no mystery why not a lot of people seem to give a shit.This is what happens when you get all proprietary with something that already exists just for the sake of doing it. Quibi tried to needlessly reinvent the wheel and then slap their terrible name on it, and now they’re seeing what happens when you do that. I’ll give it a month.
If there was any factor that made the phone an integral part of the viewing experience, or any novelty at all to the content, Quibi would be more interesting. I think they have a dating show coming up that has a voting component to it.It seems that the people behind Quibi don’t understand what’s appealing about so much internet content (besides it being free): the fact that it’s different from the kind of slickly produced stuff on TV. I don’t know how much demand there is for miniature reality shows/daytime TV/okayish narratives on the phone. People already have so many options for on-the-go distractions that getting people to pay for what’s essentially middling network TV/basic cable content is an uphill battle.
I don’t disagree with your elaboration. Entertaining shorts is fine – but I also don’t know that there really is such a clamor for short-length media in this way. Are that many people really that interested in watching a 10-minute comedy or drama in the middle of the grocery store or in line waiting for a coffee? I’d rather not do that, and instead listen to music or read the news, instead of giggling like a dumby in the middle of a public place, or contending with noise pollution from my environment or worrying about following some sort of storyline of the content in the midst of some daily grind. Thus, entertaining YouTube shorts that aren’t part of a serialized narrative are fine. But funneling the amount of money they are into this feels like a miscalculation which is being born out by the numbers.I also agree with you that it didn’t need to be a subscription, and that they didn’t need their own platform.
I think we’re saying the same things, just two different ways. I don’t disagree with any of that.
Finding agreement on the internet… it’s a beautiful thing.
I don’t think I’ll subscribe once my free trial is over, but Quibi isn’t like Youtube with somebody talking about action figures in their basement or filming their cats or something. They have actual well produced scripted shows. I’m quite liking Sam Raimi’s “50 States of Fright” anthology show, for instance. There is no way some amateurs could make something like that for their Youtube channel.
I’m not saying have amateurs do anything. I’m saying if the people responsible for this wanted to make good shows, skip all the bullshit involving building a new platform and just put all the content on one that already works such as YouTube. That’s all they’re really doing here anyway – trying to reinvent YouTube so they can put their name on it.It’s like when Uber and Lyft started offering rides to people along a set route that picked you up at the same place and dropped you off at the same point every day at the same time. All they did there was reinvent the bus.
Another thing is that this feels like Luminary, or whatever that stupid premium podcast thing is called, in that they’re taking a media space with few barriers to entry (short videos, podcasts) and bringing in big “ringer” level talent and promotion to try to make money by out-competing the little guys, crowding them out of their space AND charging for something that previously was free (or at least closer to it).In general, it feels like a guy playing basketball with his kid and dunking on him. It’s not a good look.
In general, it feels like a guy playing basketball with his kid and dunking on him. It’s not a good look.I love this description so much. Even the mental image of it is hilarious. Well done.
In this case the guy will likely end up tearing his ACL, at which point his kid will dunk on HIM.
“I don’t agree. If you have ten minutes of time while eating or standing on a grocery store line, open the news, listen to a podcast or music, or watch a cat video or something.”
Which is exactly what this is, so how is it not a decent concept?
Because it doesn’t always cost a premium subscription price for those things, and it’s not an entire network funneling billions of dollars of cash to hire celebrities and others to create this content, thus necessitating a giant amount of subscribers to keep this system afloat?
Eh, the basic concept is just “professionally produced Vines”. Which, isn’t a terrible concept.
No it’s not. A vine is a very, very short snippet that is often without context at all, and can be watched in 30 seconds. What this service is 10-minute narratives involving famous ass people they pay a ton of money to appear in. Then, instead of being free, as Vine is/was (I believe?), they are charging a premium subscription service at similar rates as that of Netflix, Hulu, etc., Either way though, what they’re delivering is not at all the same as a Vine.
And maybe it’s a little beside the point but the *production* quality is just stupid. It’s not just throwing money at celebs, it’s also throwing at crew and post like pro TV shows. Which is crazy for short attention span distraction trash on a fucking cell phone.
“The timing of such a preventative measure is odd not only because of the pandemic”
Why?
Quibi should also not basically steal the logo and premise of Memory Hole from Everything is Terrible.
I can’t wait to read about the behind-the-scenes shitshow this obviously is in about 4 years…my bingo playcard has “embezzlement”, “money laundering”, and “shady investors”…yours?
Oh, I think “Embezzlement” is the freebie space in the center.
I’ve still got it, though….but, yeah…
The story of Quibi will be far more interesting than anything they’ve produced. The article from like NYT or Vox, the HBO documentary and finally the feature film based on the article.
Ideally, a Netflix Original Feature.
“The Story of Quibi is far more interesting than anything they produced” will be used in every long-form article on it, guaranteed. I thought you were being satirical when you wrote it…I mean, maybe you were being meta about it? But yeah, that’s getting into every write up.
And I’m sure somehow Softbank is behind it all.
“hubris”, “micromanagement”, “grandkids”
And, oddly enough, a Quibi executive feeding her husband to a tiger.
Venture CapitalForeign investment banksEmbezzlement is a maybe…
To be fair, it seems like Quibi is just exercising pretty straightforward trademark protection.
A podcast promoting and actually talking about stuff they do. This is a stupid cease and desist especially when they could probably use the subscriptions and free promotion. They’re idiots. Unless this streaming service is just a front, which seems very possible.
I am not an expert in this kind of thing at all, so take this with a grain of salt, but I have heard that if companies don’t consitently threaten lawsuits in cases like these, they could risk having their trademark become generic. Like, Bayer can no longer sue or make money off other people using the “Aspirin” name because the word “aspirin” has become genericized. That’s presumably what Quibi is attempting to avoid here. I don’t know if they’re necessarily in the right, but I do think the truth is more complicated than articles like this make it seem. (I’d be happy to hear from someone with more legal knowledge than me, though.)
I am definitely not a lawyer, but most brands want as many people talking about them as possible. I just searched there are tons of very obviously not official podcasts with Netflix, Hulu and HBO in the title. My thought is this company is run by idiots.
I’d assume theres probably a fair use law if its a podcast or publication ABOUT a service that let’s you mention the name as long as theres a boilerplate saying that its unofficial and totally separate.
I’m not sure the Bayer thing really applies though because this would be the equivalent of Bayer telling a newspaper columnist to stop using the word Bayer when recommending people use Bayer aspirin in their column.
Well, the analogous situation would be if the newspaper were named The Bayer News. (Or, before aspirin became generecized, The Aspirin News.)I mean, if somebody had a podcast improbably named NBCiverse, no-one would be surprised when NBC said, “Hang on, that’s our name, not yours”.Like Good Cop, i won’t claim any legal expertise. But while i can agree that you don’t want to alienate those that are enthusiastic about your product, i can also see how even a new media company (maybe especially a new one) would feel they need to guard the use of their name and logos.They probably could have found a more diplomatic way to do that, though.
Quibi is in no danger of becoming genericized.Maybe as a term for fucking up? “Damn… I really quibi’d that test.”
The new “Britta”
A GD B?
I don’t think the company ever has to worry about “quibi” becoming a genericized trademark.
I’m a lawyer and have done a little trademark. Usually dilution is the concern, but this podcast is ABOUT Quibi shows and is not an alternative product to Quibi itself. As long as they make it clear that the podcast isn’t affiliated with Quibi, it seems stupid to try to shut it down on trademark grounds. Not totally stupid legally, just stupid from a PR and marketing perspective.
Maybe Netflix should take a note from Quibi and smack down all of the countless podcasts with the name “Netflix” in them.
They’re probably working off the assumption than all coverage will be critical. To be fair, that’s likely to be true 99% of the time.
It’s basically like that Simpsons episode where Lisa steals the pig from Homer’s barbecue and Marge yells, “Bart, no!” out of habit.
Not being multi-platform was bad enough, having a bunch of arcane policies that kill any potential of word of mouth makes it baffling that anyone invested in this in the first place.
This is what happens when you allow the lawyers to work at home, completely unsupervised. Like toddlers, they have a knack for doing senseless things that culminate in hurt feelings and forced apologies.
This is what happens when you let Jeffery Katzenberg and Meg Whitman run a media company.
So is the fundamental problem with Quibi the idea itself (short-form video at a premium cost, only available on one platform—while Youtube has millions of sub-10-minute selections), or the roll-out of the product?
Also, would this have a better chance at success in normal times, when people are on the go and actually in need of a “quick bite”?
There’s so much I don’t get about Quibi but I’ll start here – there are no barriers to entry right? All the other streaming services could also do shorts (and they do!). Building a brand around content length makes no sense. Further, who are the people who EXCLUSIVELY want short content? Can’t you digest a part of a show? What circumstances make this optimal?
Listen: This entire network was built by people in their 60s and based around the vague notion of “Millennials be using phones!”
“Kids these days have no attention span, right? That’s it, that’s the idea.”
Sounds like someone has a quibble with Quibi.
Hey why is Quibi allowed to use the name of a Colombian pharmaceutical company? (https://quibi.com.co/)
Holy hell, that’s the Gene Simmons approach to business: “No free rides” even when it works to your own advantage. Is he on the board of directors?
I wonder if they’ve also come for that poster in the comments from the AV Club article about Quibi a few weeks ago who ripped into anyone critical of the platform.
Millenials and Gen Z (or whatever they’re going to get called, we were Gen Y for a while) are on their phones to pass the time. Twitter and Instagram and Tik Toks don’t feel like a commitment. Sure, we might sink hours into it, but they’re scrolling-intensive and we determine the pace of the process. Asking us to sit down, watch entire shows on our phones, and not touch anything, is pretty ridiculous.If we wanted to watch TV, we’d do it on a bigger screen while we barely pay attention to it, fucking around on our phone.