Veni, Vidi…Quibi?

Late last night came news that, while not exactly shocking, is still impressive: Disney+ now has 50 million paid subscribers worldwide. That’s a huge jump from just two months ago, when the streamer said it had just shy of 29 million subscribers. No doubt a big, big chunk of the gains can be attributed to Disney+ rolling out around the world late last month, going live in Germany, India, Spain, and a few other big countries. But as we reported last week, there could alsobe a quarantine effect at play, with the global lockdown spurring consumersto look for new forms of indoor entertainment. Execs at Quibi are no doubt hoping some of those potential viewers decide to check out their service, which finally became reality early Monday. This week’s Buffering checks in on how Quibi is doing so far, including the quibbles some have about its dogmatic approach to mobile streaming. Plus, we dive into new Nielsen numbers for Netflix’s latest hit (a.k.a. 🐯👑) and the latest ways programmers are adapting to the coronavirus crisis. I hope you and yours are holding up well. –Joe Adalian

Reach Joe on Twitter @tvmojoe or email buffering@vulture.com.

After months of hype, and nearly three years in development, Quibi finally arrived this week, with neither a bang nor a whimper. Other than a brief outage on Monday, the short-form streamer by all accounts has had a pretty glitch-free launch week. And while it’s far too soon to judge whether consumers are embracing the platform, tech intel firm Sensor Tower estimated Quibi tallied 300,000 downloads on day one. Some outlets reported this as a failure, given Disney+ drew 4 million downloads on its debut day, but that’s silly: Disney is an American institution with near-universal brand awareness and a library filled with IP worth billions. As Friend of Buffering Matthew Ball noted, “Comparing Quibi installs to any other SVOD is senseless, usually in 20 ways. 300,000 day one installs for a brand new brand/service/model/format is huge.”

Still, while Quibi has gotten out of the gate reasonably well, it’s also tough to argue that the service has taken the world by storm. Despite kicking off with a couple dozen new shows, I’ve yet to see anything on Quibi that’s generating huge, universal acclaim or sustained social-media buzz. That’s not to say the projects are all getting widely panned: Per Metacritic, quite a few Quibis have fans in the critical community. But most of the upbeat reviews I’ve read have been along the lines of “hey, this is pretty good” versus “drop everything and pick up your phone and watch.” For what it’s worth, I like many of Quibi’s unscripted shows — particularly gonzo cooking competition Dishmantled and Chrissy’s Court — far more than I expected. But after gobbling up several episodes of each in one sitting as soon as the app dropped, I … pretty much forgot about Quibi.

Once again, it’s very early, and Quibi has many (many) shows in its pipeline. Critical buzz can also turn upbeat as more episodes come online, which is sort of what happened with Apple TV+’s The Morning Show. The biggest problem for Quibi’s efforts to get people talking about it, however, is that the COVID-19 pandemic is eating up so much of our attention. Pop culture still peaks through the darkness, especially with people consuming more entertainment #content right now (as you’ll read below with the latest news about Netflix’s Tiger King). But even things which ordinarily would be big moments, like the finales this week of Modern Family and Schitt’s Creek, feel relatively muted right now.

Quibi is giving audiences a 90-day trial for exactly this reason, of course, and founder Jeffrey Katzenberg last month told me he isn’t expecting miracles overnight in terms of subscriber sign-ups. However, even that long window of sampling won’t be enough if Quibi doesn’t start rolling out shows which connect in a big way — and if life doesn’t start getting back to something at least slightly closer to normal this summer.

One more Quibi quickie: While Katzenberg and his team have been upfront for months about the fact that their platform was designed for mobile viewing, there was a small social-media backlash when consumers found out that not only was their no connected TV app for Quibi, but that you literally cannot cast its content to a big screen via AirPlay or Google Chromecast. Not only that, but as I wrote for Vulture, Quibi won’t even let you take a screenshot of its shows. (The Verge’s Julia Alexander dug into why that’s counterproductive to Quibi’s desire to build viral buzz for its shows.) Prediction: Expect Quibi to change this before the end of the 90-day trial.

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I still haven’t watched Tiger King, but apparently everyone else has. For weeks, anecdotal evidence suggested the Netflix doc was resonating with audiences: it’s all over Twitter, people are making Tiger King cakes, and other networks are even trying to capitalize on the buzz around it. Now, Nielsen has put out some audience data for the docuseries, and the numbers are — well, they’re, you know, g-g-g-reat.

The ratings measurement giant says Tiger King generated an average minute audience of roughly 19 million U.S. television viewers during its first ten days, eclipsing tune-in over a similar timeframe for Stranger Things 2 (17.5 million) and not far behind the measured audience for Stranger Things 3 (20.5 million). Even more impressive: The seven-part docuseries racked up those numbers not by exploding out of the cage, but through exponential daily growth:

• Tiger King debuted with so-so viewership on Friday, March 20, notching an average minute audience of 280,000 viewers, well below tune-in for the opening days of Netflix scripted series such as Mindhunter season two (395,000) or Altered Carbon season one (335,000).

• The audience more than doubled the next day, to 768,000 — not a big shock given it’s a weekend. But it then nearly doubled again on Sunday, March 22 (1.3 million).

• By Thursday, March 26, Nielsen says 2.1 million people were watching the show daily, a figure which doubled again (to 4.1 million viewers) by Saturday, March 28. Tiger King’s second weekend (March 27–29) average minute audience jumped to an eye-popping 7.8 million viewers, triple the roughly 2.4 million who watched opening weekend. (Nielsen hasn’t yet released data from last weekend.)

As I noted in my Vulture post about this Wednesday, there are some caveats to these numbers, most notably that they likely significantly underestimate the actual audience for the show, particularly on a global basis. But what does seem clear is that Tiger King is another example of Netflix building an audience for a show organically, through social-media platforms and old-fashioned word of mouth. Much the way Cheer and Love Is Blind took over the pop culture discourse for days at a time, Tiger King succeeded without a massive external marketing campaign. Instead, Netflix once again used the power of its platform to convince audiences to sample the series, and then let consumers spread the word.

This is hardly a new phenomenon for the service — remember Making a Murderer? — but as the streaming wars heat up, Netflix’s strategy of constantly churning out new content is paying off with more of these pop culture moments.

Fans may hate it when seemingly fine and even beloved shows such as One Day at a Time or Santa Clarita Diet end prematurely. And yet, limiting the lifespans of all but the biggest shows lets Netflix make more new stuff, programs far more likely to stand out, build buzz and, hopefully, spur subscription sign-ups.

Getting the balance right is tricky, of course; you don’t want consumers or creatives thinking Netflix series are disposable. But as long as Netflix thinks there’s room to build up its subscriber base, flashy new toys such as Tiger King are going to be better investments than third or fourth seasons of shows only a small subsection of viewers care about.

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Disney+ was one of the first streaming platforms to realize an opportunity to serve audiences (and build goodwill) during the coronavirus crisis when it opted to move up the streaming premiere of Frozen 2 by a few months. Not long after, realizing stay-at-home audiences might be looking for new options, a slew of smaller streamers extended their trial periods to 30 days (with Quibi offering a 90-day try-before-you-buy), while the broadcast networks rushed on some (really well-done) quickie entertainment specials to help boost audience morale. But in recent days, the trickle of pandemic-related programming and programming stunts has become a river as linear and streaming platforms try to figure out the best way forward in these very weird times:

• Lady Gaga is spearheading One World: Together at Home, an April 18 special hosted by Stephen Colbert and the two Jimmys (Fallon and Kimmel). It will air on dozens of U.S. broadcast and cable networks, as well as Prime Video, Hulu, and platforms around the world.

• CBS is resurrecting its Sunday movie franchise for five weeks next month, reimagining it as a showcase for retro blockbusters such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Titanic. The Eye is doing this in part to compensate for the fact that, because of COVID-19, several of its dramas halted production before completing their full season orders. Rather than just throwing on more reruns, this gives the network a promotable stunt perfect for the social distancing era. (Plus, all the titles come from new ViacomCBS sibling Paramount Pictures. Synergy, baby!)

• HBO and AMC Networks such as Sundance Now are letting audiences stream a ton of titles from their various streaming platforms without even signing up for a trial subscription. (One show missing when AMC Networks originally announced its slate of free shows was Australian import Rosehaven, a completely charming comedy well worth your time. I bugged the kind folks at the company and am happy to report season one of the show is now outside the Sundance Now paywall through at least April 14. You can watch it here.)

• Right after last week’s Buffering went out, Disney said its planned May 29 release of Artemis Fowl has been canceled and the movie will instead premiere on Disney+ sometime this year. Former Disney CEO Bob Iger is hinting that “a few more” Disney films could shift to one of the company’s streamers (i.e., Disney+ or Hulu).

• Networks are stepping up with some well-executed PSA campaigns designed to boost morale during these dark times (and, yes, boost their #brands). I don’t watch most of the shows in these NBC and AMC videos, but I was moved by both of them.