On the heels of getting the FCC’s proposal to merge with Sprint, T-Mobile announced a plan to partner with Jeffrey Katzenberg’s mobile streaming service, Quibi. According to statements provided to the LA Times, and confirmed by Variety, Quibi CEO Meg Whitman specifically called out T-Mobile’s “impressive 5G road map” as a good fit for the soon-to-launch streaming service.
The partnership will give T-Mobile’s 83.1 million customers access to Quibi’s premium content, but no details as to how it would be bundled into the carrier’s plans are currently available. It’s possible that Quibi will either be offered at a discount for T-Mobile users, or it could be available as an add-on or available with a special bundle deal.
The deal will present a new competitor to AT&T’s streaming services, AT&T TV Now (previously DirecTV Now) and low-cost WatchTV, as well as its upcoming premium service, HBO Max. Verizon (TechCrunch’s parent company) also dabbled with mobile streaming with go90, but that service was shut down last year after failing to gain adoption.
The news of the T-Mobile deal comes on the heels of a series of rapid-fire announcements about the shows and celebs who will be contributing to Quibi, which will provide a range of programming, including news, lifestyle, comedy, drama, horror, reality, action and more. And all is broken up into shorter-form bits — or “quick bites,” hence the service’s name.
As for the programming, Quibi has brought in big names like Sam Raimi, Guillermo del Toro, Antoine Fuqua and producer Jason Blum, Liam Hemsworth, Lorne Michaels, Steven Speilberg, Tyra Banks, Idris Elba, Trevor Noah, Queen Latifah, Sophie Turner and others.
“Quibi will deliver premium video content for millennials on a technology platform that is built exclusively for mobile, so a telecommunications partner like T-Mobile, with their broad coverage today and impressive 5G road map, is the perfect fit,” Quibi chief executive Meg Whitman said in a statement run by the LA Times.
“Quibi is leading the way on how video content is made and experienced in a mobile-first world,” said Mike Sievert, president and chief operating officer of T-Mobile. “That’s why our partnership makes perfect sense — two mobile-centric disrupters coming together to give customers something new and remarkable.”
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Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The companies confirmed the news to TechCrunch, following the L.A. Times report.
