Quibi details ad strategy for US$4.99 tier

More details are beginning to emerge about short-form streamer Quibi ahead of its April 6 launch, including the specifics of its advertising.

The streamer will be offered in two tiers – US$4.99 with ads or US$7.99 without. For the ad-supported tier, Quibi has provided details of the non-skippable pre-roll ads that will run before the 5-10 minute shows.

According to Axios, Quibi has signed on 10 companies to provide ads. These partners include the likes of Google, Walmart, Pepsi and T-Mobile. Those partners can run unskippable 6-, 10- or 15-second ads before shows, though there is no ability to implement mid-roll ads. The report adds that Quibi has suggested that the longer ads should only run on videos that are on the larger scale of Quibi’s sub-10 minute videos.

In total, users can expect to see 2.5 minutes of advertising for every hour of programming – significantly less than traditional TV. That said, users experience fewer ads on YouTube, a service which does not have a financial barrier to entry.

The news comes shortly after Quibi was forced to call off its glitzy launch event in California.

The event was set to take place in Culver City, California the day before the streamer’s launch on April 6, but the Katzenberg-Whitman startup has called off the event “out of an abundance of caution” amid the spread of coronavirus.

The service, which promises to create high-quality content under 10 minutes in length, will kick off its offer with 50 launch titles. These range from four ‘movies in chapters’ (full length movies split into chunks between four and 10 minutes), unscripted shows (such as the Chance the Rapper-starring Punk’d reboot) and scripted shows (including the Liam Hemsworth-Christoph Waltz starring Most Dangerous Game).