Quibi streaming service launches in April with 50 short-form shows

Quibi, the short-form streaming video platform we've been hearing about for months, has provided some new information about its upcoming plans. As expected, the service will officially launch in early April with short-form videos that'll be easy to watch from your smartphone. We now know how many shows subscribers can expect at launch, as well as how many will be added later on this year.

The youngest generations of content consumers are largely watching short videos on their phones; this content comes from a variety of platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, and other social networks. Watching long shows on a smartphone isn't terribly comfortable, however, and difficult to squeeze in between classes or while on the bus. That's where Quibi will come in.

The platform plans to offer 'quick bite' content that is 10 minutes or shorter in length, and that can be watched in vertical or horizontal orientations. Content will include unscripted shows, episodic documentaries, 'Daily Essentials,' and movies split up into short chunks.

The service will officially be available to the public starting on April 6 and it will cost $4.99/month with advertisements ($7.99/month to get rid of the ads). Quibi says it will launch with 50 shows, but that number will grow to 175 shows throughout the service's first 12 months.

Quibi has been dropping tweets about every short show coming to the service next month on its official Twitter account. Launch shows will include The Sauce, Punk'd, Flipped, Elba vs Block, Murder House Flip, Survive, Dishmantled, Gayme Show, Fierce Queens, Prodigy, Run This City, Shape of Pasta, You Ain't Got These, and more.