Quibi loses key executive ahead of 2020 launch

Short-form video streaming service Quibi is without an important executive ahead of its April 2020 launch after Tim Connolly, head of partnerships and advertising, left the company.

Connolly was handling relationships for Quibi with distribution partners, advertisers, agencies as well as with promotional and tech partners. According to Variety, Connolly’s departure means the company’s advertising sales group will now report directly to CEO Meg Whitman.

Connolly joined Quibi in 2018 after leaving Hulu – where he served as senior vice president of partnerships and distribution – as part of the company’s sweeping reorganization.

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Quibi, a startup run by founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, is one of a handful of high-profile video streaming services launching within the next year. Disney+ is launching in November and both WarnerMedia’s HBO Max and NBCUniversal’s streaming service are planning to launch in 2020.

Quibi will launch on April 6, 2020 and have two service tiers. The base tier will cost $4.99 per month and include one pre-roll ad before each video segment. The ad will be 10 seconds if the video is less than five minutes, and 15 seconds if the video is between five and 10 minutes long. The service will also offer an ad-free option for $7.99 per month.

According to Variety, Whitman said that Quibi will have approximately 7,000 pieces of content when it launches. Series on Quibi will be two-to-four hours long, and will be divided into segments that will be no longer than 10 minutes each.

Quibi will reportedly forego building apps for connected TV devices and focus solely on mobile distribution.