Ryan Amor

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Day 13: Do you have 10 minutes?

If you do, that’s how long you have to watch a mystery, a comedy or catch up with the news. There are docus, true stories and Chrissy Teigen doing a Judge Judy turn. There’s LeBron, Justin Bieber, Pulso news from Telemundo. All of it clocking at just 10 minutes, and only viewable on your phone.

Welcome to Quibi.

When you sign-up, you get a free trial run for 3 months after which you’e charged a monthly subscription of $13.99. If I like it, then I won’t cancel after 3-months. This means, it joins a really crowded party where Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV, Amazon, Hulu, NeonTV and TVNZ compete for my ever worsening eyesight.

Funny thing is, I struggle to finish a movie (average length: 2 hours) even if I have ensconced myself in bed with snacks. I keep getting distracted (must really be my ADHD). Today, I finished the last 10 minutes of my morning tea-break watching Sophie Turner in the Quibi survival thriller Survive. And you know what? The length was just perfect and more importantly, the show was substantial.

Apparently, the funding for this short-form mobile platform is in the billions (that’s Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman- Google them if you don’t know who they are) which translates to $100,000 per minute for its top-tier offerings. And the quality shows- question is, will I be $13.99 poorer?