Quibi, a new short-form video platform from Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, is gearing up to launch next year with a slate of original series including a pasta-themed show starring acclaimed LA chef Evan Funke.
In every episode of Shape of Pasta, the chef/proprietor of LA’s celebrated Felix Trattoria will travel through Italy learning about local recipes and traditional pasta-making techniques. The series is being produced by Ugly Brother Studios, the company that also helped create the James Beard Award-nominated Amazon series Eat the World With Emeril Lagasse. Although Funke has earned numerous accolades for his work — including Felix’s inclusion on Bill Addison’s Best New Restaurants list and an “LA Restaurant of the Year” Eater Award in 2017 — the chef has only appeared on a handful of TV shows before, and never in a hosting role. The Shape of Pasta is getting an eight-episode order, and each chapter, like all Quibi content, will be under 10 minutes long.
In other Quibi food TV news, the video platform will also be home to a new culinary competition show called Biggest Little Cook-Off. Riffing on the popularity of the tiny food trend, the new series will feature two chefs competing to make dishes like sushi and spaghetti and meatballs in portions small enough to fit on top of a dime. No word yet on who’s going to be hosting this show, but considering that Biggest Little Cook-Off is being produced by Levity Live, a company that primarily manages improv venues, the series will likely have a funny person as the master of ceremonies.
Unlike streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, which offer their original content on a variety of devices, all Quibi content will be exclusively available to watch on your phone. Over the last year, Katzenberg and Whitman raised over a billion dollars in funding for this new project, while also signing up Hollywood heavy hitters like Steven Spielberg, Idris Elba, Paul Feig, and Stephen Soderbergh to create content. For $4.99 per month (or $7.99 for an ad-free subscription) users will get access to 7,000 original videos, broken up into standalone “Quick Bites” in the style of Shape of Pasta and Biggest Little Cook-Off, as well as narratively-connected “Lighthouses,” that will be two-to-four hour movies and series broken up into tiny chapters.
“I’m going to continue to believe, and argue, and preach that Quibi is not a substitute or a competitor for television,” Katzenberg recently told Vanity Fair. “Our [service] is exclusively about what you do from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on your phone. And what you’re doing today, if you’re in our core demographic of 25- to 35-year-olds, is you’re actually watching 60-70 min of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. That growth is now a well-established consumer habit that Quibi is sailing into.”
Quibi is now slated to launch in April 2020. Stay tuned for updates on its food TV programming as they become available.
• What Is Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi All About, and Why Should You Care? [Vanity Fair]
• Quibi co-founders reveal pricing and launch date for the short-form streaming service [The Verge]
• All Food TV Coverage [E]