What you need to know
- Quibi is a short-form streaming app, featuring series with episodes only ten minutes long.
- It launched back in April as a mobile-only experience.
- It now supports several new TV systems as it looks to increase its appeal.
Short-form streaming platform Quibi has rolled out apps for several TV systems in a bid to increase viewership and appeal, following a fairly unsuccessful mobile-only launch earlier this year.
The platform announced the change Monday stating that Quibi's new living room apps were available, and would support Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, and Android TV.
To use the services you'll need a Quibi account, set up through the app on your mobile device.
When it launched back in April, Quibi was supposed to be a mobile-only experience. The venture has invested some $1.8 billion in short-form television shows featuring Chrissy Teigen, J-Lo, LeBron James, and Steven Spielberg. As you can imagine, launching a short-form video service for consuming content on the go right at the onset of a global pandemic has not made for a particularly successful launch. As such, Quibi has been working overtime to pivot towards current consumer needs, namely at-home, family room viewing on the bigger screen. To that end, Quibi has already added support for AirPlay on iOS, and now supports a couple of major living room TV platforms as mentioned.
Specifically, Quibi is supported on the Apple TV 4th generation or greater as long as it's running tvOS 12.0. Firestick, Fire TV, and Android TV require Android OS 7.1 - API level 25 or higher.
A Quibi subscription costs $4.99 (with ads), or you can purchase an ad-free subscription for $7.99 a month. As reported by WSJ, Quibi has struggled to get off the ground so much it has reportedly considered selling up just six months on from launch.
