New mobile-only streaming service Quibi will launch in the US on April 6, as announced at the Consumer Electronics Show 2020 in Las Vegas.
The new streaming service Quibi, which raised $1 billion in funds, will launch on April 6 in the US and will offer shows that are 10 minutes or shorter. The company. whose name stands for "quick bites", has commissioned some of Hollywood's biggest names to make content for its mobile-only service.
The company plans to offer the streaming service at $4.99 per month for basic access and $7.99 for an ad-free version. Quibi's chief executive Meg Whitman and founder Jeffrey Katzenberg announced the details of the service at CES 2020.
Whitman previously served as CEO of eBay and Hewlett Packard Enterprise while Katzenberg produced some of Disney's best known animated movies before heading up Dreamworks Animation.
Among those involved with Quibi are directors Steven Spielberg, Sam Raimi and Guillermo del Toro, models Chrissy Teigen and Tyra Banks, and actors Bill Murray, Idris Elba and Reese Witherspoon.
The service boasts its feature called Turnstile, which allows viewers to keep the image full-screen, whether they hold their phone in landscape or portrait mode. Show creators for Quibi have also  framed their shots so that they can suit either aspect ratio, and in some cases, reveal a different point-of-view.
According to Whitman, the company has partnered with Steven Spielberg to create a horror series called After Dark, which can only be watched after sunset. Whitman explained that to be able to do this, the app will check the user's location and the local time to check it is indeed dark where they are.
She also claimed that Quibi had received more than a 100 pitches a week from filmmakers who wanted to use its Turnstile technology. She said: "There's a long history in this town of Hollywood, of technology enabling a new form of storytelling. And that's exactly what we're trying to do."
