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The company, led by founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman, confirmed that it intends “to wind down its business operations and initiate a process to sell its assets.” The shutdown comes just a little over six months after Quibi launched in April, at the front end of the COVID pandemic’s sweep across the U.S.

The company, led by founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman, confirmed that it intends “to wind down its business operations and initiate a process to sell its assets.” The shutdown comes just a little over six months after Quibi launched in April, at the front end of the COVID pandemic’s sweep across the U.S.

Katzenberg founded Quibi on the untested theory that smartphone-toting millennials would eagerly pay for a premium mobile TV service that they could consume in sub-10-minute episodes.

Katzenberg and Whitman attributed Quibi’s failure to gain traction to one of two reasons (or, they said, both): “because the idea itself wasn’t strong enough to justify a standalone streaming service or because of our timing.” The execs added, “The circumstances of launching during a pandemic is something we could have never imagined but other businesses have faced these unprecedented challenges and have found their way through it. We were not able to do so.”