Roku has announced that it was acquired the bulk of Quibi’s content, less than three months after the short-form video streaming service shut down.
Neither company revealed specific financial terms of the deal, but Roku says it will gain most of Quibi’s TV shows and documentaries, outside of daily news shows. This includes drama series Most Dangerous Game with Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz, comedy series Dummy starring Anna Kendrick and the Chrissy Teigen-hosted arbitration show Chrissy’s Court. As part of the deal, Roku has also secured the rights to more than a dozen unaired Quibi programs.
Roku says it will make its Quibi content available for free with ads sometime later this year.
Originally launched in Canada and other countries in April 2020, Quibi was positioned as a way to consume “bite-sized” content in five- to ten-minute episodes on your mobile device. However, despite being headed up by former Walt Disney Studios chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, and having numerous series fronted by big-name stars, Quibi failed to make much of an impact in the world of entertainment.
Although Quibi expected to amass seven million subscribers in its first year, the service had only reached about 500,000 subscribers after about six months. The company eventually announced its shutdown in October, with Quibi’s last day of service being December 1st.
Roku, by contrast, saw record growth last year amid the pandemic. Speaking to Deadline, Roku vice president of programming Rob Holmes confirmed that more content acquisitions akin to the Quibi purchase are likely to happen as it continues to grow over time.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on January 3rd that Roku was nearing a deal to purchase Quibi’s content.
Image credit: Quibi
Via: CNBC
