One is a legend in the media business, the other in the tech world. But together Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman are intent on bringing the best of both worlds together for their ambitious new venture: Quibi.
On the latest episode of the Variety podcast Strictly Business, the dynamic duo shared their battle plan to revolutionize mobile entertainment. For starters, content discovery is going to have to be a snap when you’re programming to people on their iPhones.
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“It takes about eight minutes to find what you are looking for on Netflix,” said Whitman, who recorded the episode with Katzenberg from the stage of Variety’s Innovate summit in Los Angeles. “This can not take eight minutes.”
They also shared some additional details on the technology and roadmap of the service. “The biggest challenge is the volume of content,” Katzenberg said, explaining that Quibi wanted to serve up 5,000 quick bites of content in the year following its launch. “It’s a tall order to do this in the next 12 months, but that doesn’t mean we are not gonna try.”
Whitman has a clear sense of the in-between times consumers will be watching all that content. “You leave the house every morning with a little TV in your pocket. It’s called your smart phone,” she explained. “During the day, you have these in-between moments. Ten minutes here, 15 minutes there, where you want to see something great.”
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“Strictly Business” is Variety‘s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of entertainment. Check out previous “Strictly Business” episodes featuring comedian/actor/producer Kevin Hart, Discovery CEO David Zaslav, and HBO chairman/CEO Richard Plepler. A new episode debuts each Tuesday and can be downloaded on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, and SoundCloud.
