In the wake of the underwhelming launch of the short-form streaming service Quibi in April, it has been announced that senior executives at the service will take a 10% reduction in pay “because it’s the right thing to do.”
The belt-tightening move of the Jeffrey Katzenberg’s mobile video only subscription startup makes sense, and in a memo to staff Wednesday it has been revealed staff is not being laid off as a part of cost-saving measures.
Quibi has banked about $1.75 billion in funding and launched in a good financial position, even as only 1.6 million users signed up for a free 90-day trial which will soon come to an end. Katzenberg stated last month everything that has gone wrong with the launch he traces back to the coronavirus.
The memo comes in response to a New York Post’s Page Six report claiming “Quibi may have to implement cutbacks” while a Wall Street Journal claimed the company was considering laying off 10% of its staff of 250.
The Page Six report also claims Quibi paid Reese Witherspoon $6 million to narrate the “Fierce Queens” nature docuseries and staff are upset with the situation as the show was said to be one of the service’s biggest duds. Katzenberg and Whitman’s memo claims the report is “utterly inaccurate”.
The Quibi app has fallen out of Apple’s Top 200 apps, with Sensor Tower placing it at 1,007th.
