Quibi Founder Jeffrey Katzenberg Goes Over The New Streaming Service

Got a few minutes? That’s all you need to be entertained, informed and inspired. Quibi presents fresh content from today’s top talent—one quick bite at a time. Get ready to make any moment extraordinary with incredible storytelling delivered right to your phone. From daily essentials to breakout shows, the next chapter will always be waiting. Jeffrey Katzenberg, Quibi Founder and Chairman of the Board, joined BUILD.

Video Transcript

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ANDY SERWER: Hello, everyone. Welcome to "BUILD At Home." I'm Andy Serwer, editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. Delighted to be with you all today, and very happy to introduce our guest, a Hollywood force of nature, Jeffrey Katzenberg. He was an executive at the Walt Disney Company, one of the founders of DreamWorks, and now has a new company, Quibi. And it's launch day today, Jeffrey. Why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about what Quibi is.

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: So thank you, Andy. Thanks for having me today. Quibi is a new subscription service made only for your telephone. It is a new form of stories and storytelling, and everything is in chapters of 5 to 10 minutes in length. And it's made by the best and brightest talents in Hollywood, both the creators and storytellers.

And I'm very excited to talk about that today. And they've made an incredible, incredible content. And we've given them a new technology that makes watching it on your phone unlike anything that you've seen before. It's really beautiful. And super excited for people to get a chance now to finally see it. We've been working on this for three years, and here we are, day one.

ANDY SERWER: Right, so it's an entertainment platform, the first entertainment platform just made for mobile. Shorter, episodic content, so designed for you to be on the go. And you've got just a litany of stars, Jeffrey. Let me just go through some of them. I mean, it's amazing--

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: Well, let's call it a galaxy, Andy.

ANDY SERWER: A galaxy. Sorry, excuse me. A veritable galaxy. A universe. You've got J Lo, Chrissy Teigen, LeBron James, Chance the Rapper, Liam Hemsworth, Nicole Richie, Reese Witherspoon. I mean, I'm not doing the others justice because you've literally got so many people, so many amazing--

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: Kevin Hart, Will Smith, Idris Elba. It just-- the list is fantastic. And it's really-- it's the most amazing talent. And Steven Spielberg and Guillermo Del Toro and Pete Farley and Bill Murray and everybody is making stuff on Quibi. It's actually incredible.

ANDY SERWER: And how do you get it?

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: You get it on your phone. You can go to either to Apple or Google, Apple Store or Google Play, and you can download it. It's an app. You can go to Quibi.com and get it through Quibi.com. And it's free for the next 90 days. So, you know, please check it out. I think you'll see it's a lot of fun.

ANDY SERWER: And after that, it becomes-- it is a subscription product, so it's what, $4.99 a month, or $7.99 without ads?

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: That's correct.

ANDY SERWER: Great, great. So how did you get all these people to join this thing?

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: Well, I think it's a combination of things, Andy, and really sort of three, which is, first and foremost, a new form of storytelling. So we think about it, we've had two generations up to now we've had movies, which are two-hour stories we watch in a single sitting, mostly in movie theaters. Then we have TV, which is principally 13 to 26 episode of a longform story that we're told in chapters that are an hour apiece that you watch on a television set. And we have seen that continue to evolve today with streaming.

And we believe the next generation in storytelling are going to be these great movies told in chapters that are designed exclusively for your telephone. That idea of doing something new and original and creative was highly, highly appealing to the really best storytellers and filmmakers in Hollywood. Then when we showed them this new technology that allowed them to shoot these in a new way that would make watching it on your phone beautiful-- you know, most stuff-- 82% of content we watch on our phones is like a little box across the top of a screen. And you know, it's fine, and we've all been used to it and doing it, but it doesn't really take advantage of what could you possibly do with this device.

And so that's where our technology innovation comes into play. And the combination of new type of storytelling, new technology, and a business model that allows all of our suppliers to actually own their IP, because we only license it from them, those three things together became undeniable. And so virtually everybody has shown up and made content for us.

ANDY SERWER: OK, you've got a phone there. Do you have Quibi loaded? I bet you do. Can you show us a little bit about what it looks like?

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: Sure. What I'll do is let me just show you a few-- you know, maybe 10, 12 seconds of a show called "Shape of Pasta," which is a beautiful show by this amazing chef here in Los Angeles who is considered one of the great pasta chefs in the world, who went to Italy to try and find eight new pastas. And so it's called "The Shape of Pasta." So here's just a little look at what this looks like on your phone.

ANDY SERWER: Woo.

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: So anytime you say turn, it automatically goes to a beautiful image no matter how you're holding the phone. So it doesn't matter whether it's in portrait, which is how we mostly hold our phones, or in landscape, which is particularly good when it's scripted storytelling. But no matter which way you hold it, it's beautiful. And so that was a real innovation, and something that became very appealing to great filmmakers to sort of use this new technology and use it in a way that we've never seen anything like it before.

ANDY SERWER: So Jeffrey, April 6, 2020. We're in the midst of this terrible coronavirus pandemic. You decided to go ahead and launch. And I guess it makes sense because this is actually something that's very useful for people who are stuck at home, working from home, looking maybe for a break, looking for some entertainment.

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: Well, a bunch of things were factors in this, some of which we didn't know, what we anticipated. And you know, this is that old-- you know, sort of two old things that I remember my mom always saying to me. You know, when they give you a lemon, make lemonade, you know, and adversity is the mother of invention. And so honestly, that's where we found ourselves.

And so a couple of things. One, now, today, viewing mobile on our phones is up 60% over a month ago. So--

ANDY SERWER: Wow.

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: --being in home is actually-- and by the way, much, much more than television viewing is, right? So everybody's been talking about TV and "Tiger King," which we're all watching, right, but viewing and watching mobile video has gone through the roof. And so the timing is actually pretty great in that regard.

The other thing is that Quibi from the very beginning was designed to be a media platform, an entertainment platform in which we would inform people, we would entertain them, and we would inspire them. And I think when you see the content that these amazing filmmakers and brands have delivered to us, they have actually exceeded my expectations, and I think will exceed most other people's also. That's my hope, anyway.

And so what Meg and I-- Meg Whitman, my partner in this-- what we really decided was, if we were going to stay the course and come out now, the one thing that we should do is just change that business proposition, and just give it to people free, because this is a moment in time in which people are stressed and distressed, particularly economically.

So one, the good news, or the good side of this is let's do something that's nice and generous, and hopefully we'll add some escape and happiness to people. And on the other side of it, from a business, we're in this for the long haul. What we care about is what Quibi looks like six months, a year, two years from now. And you know, we're a well financed company. We can more than afford to just give it away to everybody for three months and let them enjoy it.

ANDY SERWER: Great stuff there. And of course, we're working from home. We're talking to each other from our homes. And did you have to sort of, finish or right before the launch, do this from everyone's respective houses, right?

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: 100%. We-- our company, you know, went to work from home, I don't know, 23, 24 days ago. Very early on. The mayor of LA was very early and aggressive about sheltering in place. And so, you know, it took us two, three days, but I have to say-- maybe it's because we have such a young workforce-- we very quickly pivoted to this. And everybody's got Zoom and Slack.

And you know, honestly, it takes the personal connection, which I always love so much being around people-- you've known me for a long time, I am a people person-- and so I miss being in the room, but I don't believe we've missed a beat in terms of actually just keeping our business running. And you know, we launched this thing today. It's a brand-new app, a brand-new user experience. So far, knock wood, it's been up and running without any real engineering challenges or problems. And so we're pretty excited.

ANDY SERWER: And how many shows are live right now, Jeffrey?

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: So we launched today, and we will have in the first two weeks-- so this week and next week combined-- we will actually have over 50 original shows and 500 individual episodes. And then going forward, every day we put up over 30 pieces of original content. So it's a lot of new content every single day. And that's what it's meant to be, is something that has value for you in your everyday life. It's not wait and do it on a weekend or-- you know, it's meant to have something new for you each day, and invaluable for you each day.

ANDY SERWER: Right. So is all of it episodic, or do you put out one of the shows with all the episodes so you can binge it?

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: We haven't done that yet, Andy. I-- you know, my fantasized version of this is that we love the idea of water cooler. And so today, all of the movies, we put them up today, we put three episodes of every one of them up today. And then there'll be a new episode every day Tuesday through Friday, and then into next week.

And that is the way in which most of our content will be published, which is every Monday we will, for now until forever, we will launch two new series every Monday. And there'll be an episode on the first day, and then however many days it takes to play it out. So if it's 8 episodes or 12 episodes or 15 episodes.

They stay up, so if you want to wait and binge, you can, but we think, you know, that sort of water cooler, where we all get to kind of share and talk about things that we're watching-- we're seeing it already going on today with "Survive" with Sophie Turner and "Most Dangerous Game" with Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz, and "I Promise" with LeBron James, if you go on, you just-- it's all over social media today, where people are talking about, oh my god, I saw this, did you see that, and oh, I can't wait till tomorrow for the next chapter. That's the idea. And it's something for us all to share and talk about.

ANDY SERWER: So of course you know all about peak content, and people suggesting there's already too much content out there in the world. And what is your take on that in terms of launching a new content platform?

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: Well, I just don't think this-- you know, we're not competing with Netflix or Disney Plus or, you know, Amazon or Hulu or-- I can go on and on. They're all in the TV business. They are all competing for your living room. They're all competing. And whether your TV screen is a laptop, a desktop, an iPad or a television set, which is 90% of how television is viewed on one of those devices, 10% of it is watched on a telephone, we're just a completely different use case in this.

And so yes, I think there is a battle going on, you know, for traditional television, one-hour TV. We're not in that game, and we're not competing with them in it. And so I don't-- I actually-- I just don't think it's the same proposition at all. And so we don't see them as our competitors, and frankly they don't see us as their competitor.

ANDY SERWER: So let's talk about some of your favorites. I know this is going to be very difficult for you, Jeffrey, because quibi favorite children, one of those things. I-- my eye was caught by "Chrissy's Court." I mean, that's got to be [INAUDIBLE]

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: Of course you were.

ANDY SERWER: [INAUDIBLE]

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: Yeah, so let me tell you about "Chrissy's Court." So Chrissy, you know, who is just one of the most fun people on planet Earth--

ANDY SERWER: Yes.

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: --you know, we got in a conversation with her, and she started talking and she said, you know, my favorite show is "Judge Judy." And we went, OK, well that's a fun show, that's a great show. She said, well, I want to do my version of "Judge Judy." And we went, OK. And so we had this line, which is there is no claim that is too small for Chrissy's court. And as you saw, it's crazy. It's insane. It's ridiculous, and it's completely charming. And she is just a delight, and just couldn't be more fun. And you know, so we shot 18 episodes of that show in two days.

ANDY SERWER: OK, any other favorites that come to mind?

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: Well, I won't be [INAUDIBLE] I'll tell you the ones that people are gravitating to right now, which we've seen it in the early stuff. So people are watching "Survive" with Sophie Turner. They're watching "Most Dangerous Game" with Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz. They're watching "Punk'd" with Chance the Rapper. They're watching "Elba Versus Block." It's a stunt car competition between Idris Elba and Ken Block. So there's a crazy, ridiculous thing called "Murder House Flip." [INAUDIBLE] you know, house redo in murder homes [INAUDIBLE] but it's really good. It's really fun and entertaining. And so people are making their way, they're finding through it. But you know, with 50 shows, Andy, I'm confident that there's 6, 8, 10 things in there that are just going to take off and people are going to have a blast with it.

ANDY SERWER: All right, I bet they are. Jeffrey Katzenberg, founder of Quibi. It's Quibi day, everyone, April 6, 2020. Jeffrey, thank you so much for joining us here at "BUILD At Home."

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: Nice seeing you. Thank you, sir. Be safe.

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