Streaming Service Quibi Agrees to Partner with T-Mobile

Quibi – the Hollywood-backed mobile streaming service slated to launch this April – struck a deal with T-Mobile last week, giving the telecom giant exclusive rights to distribute its forthcoming content. The deal will make Quibi’s mobile programming available to T-Mobile’s 83 million customers – a number that’s sure to grow now that Washington seems likely to greenlight the company’s $26.6 billion merger with industry competitor, Sprint. 

The details of the partnership – such as whether T-Mobile customers will receive discounts or whether the Quibi app will be pre-installed on their phones, have not yet been made public.

Quibi is the brainchild of former HP CEO Meg Whitman and heavyweight Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg — think Shrek— whose industry inroads have helped the platform land contracts with big-league creatives like Steven Spielberg and Tyra Banks. T-Mobile, the world’s third largest wireless provider, is piloted by millennial-loving, magenta-wearing CEO John Legere, who said about the Quibi partnership, “Of course Quibi and T-Mobile are working together – we’re two mobile-centric disruptors committed to challenging the status quo and giving customers incredible experiences,” in a statement.

This past July, the US Justice Department approved T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint after years of debate, much to the dismay of many consumer advocacy organizations. The merger’s final approval hearing is scheduled to take place in early December.

Despite concerns about an overcrowded streaming market, Quibi has raised $1 billion in financing from major studios like NBC Universal and has partnered with pop-culture outlets like Entertainment Weekly and E! Entertainment to create branded, bite-sized video content for busy millennials. Slated programs include Entertainment Weekly’s “Late Night This Morning,” a daily recap show which will highlight the best moments from Jimmy Fallon and others, and “Spielberg’s After Dark,” a horror series written and produced by Steven-you-know-who that will only be viewable after sundown. Daily horoscopes and Weather Channel reports are also on the docket. 

Competitors like Disney+ and Netflix have mobile platforms, sure, but they aren’t exclusively built for mobile viewing or millennial attention spans. Still, the buzz around Quibi’s concept has confused streaming insiders, who watched Verizon’s similar short-form media platform, G090, crash and burn just three years after its launch in 2015. The streaming market is saturated, and Hollywood-quality content — the kind that Quibi wants to carry – is expensive to produce, with budgets that can reach up to $125,000 per minute of video.

Quibi hopes its partnership with T-Mobile will broaden its reach, with CEO Whitman citing the telecom company’s “impressive 5G roadmap” among the factors that made it “the perfect fit” in a statement.

Quibi’s streaming will cost $5 per month with ads and $8 without them. The service plan to release around 7,000 pieces of content in its first year alone.