Quibi, the streaming equivalent of being forced to pay $8 for moist sandwich bites during a long airport layover, is having a rough go of things. A new Wall Street Journal article reports that the service is losing subscribers at an alarming weekly rate, with paid users being about 4 million lower than the original annual target of 7.4 million. “Quibi is trying to conserve cash,†the newspaper says. “Last month, the company estimated it would need to reduce its content and marketing budgets by a combined $300 million in its first year.†Its worsening money and content problems aside, though, buried within the Journal’s piece is an amusing tidbit â — an amusing quick bite, if you will â — about one of Quibi’s original names, which founder Jeffrey Katzenberg was an advocate for:
The executives wanted a name that captured the company’s strategy. Mr. Katzenberg was initially partial to “Omakase,†a term used to describe high-quality sushi selected by the chef. Ms. Whitman wasn’t in favor. The two agreed to set it aside. The company hired a brand-strategy firm, Siegel+Gale, which helped come up with the name Quibi— short for “quick bites.â€
Get it? Because the shows are the high-quality sushi? And … we are the chef? To think we could’ve been calling the home of the Anna Kendrick sex doll show, the murder flip house show, and the Chrissy Teigen judge show Omakase this entire time. Good luck blaming the coronavirus on that.