• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, March 6, 2020

Upcoming short-form, mobile video service Quibi and Bell, Canada’s largest telecommunications company, have inked a deal making Bell the streaming platform’s exclusive Canadian marketing partner in the telecommunications category.

Bell will promote Quibi to Canadians through the marketing channels of its Bell Media and Bell Mobility businesses.

Through Bell Media, Bell will also become Quibi’s first Canadian provider of daily content.

Bell Media's CTV News organization will produce a daily news program, to stream on Quibi mornings and evenings on weekdays, and mornings on weekends. Bell Media's TSN sports network will produce a daily sports information update to stream every morning, seven days a week.

The two programs will be part of Quibi's Daily Essentials news and entertainment content lineup.  

Quibi signed a marketing deal with T-Mobile in the U.S. last year in which Quibi will be bundled with T-mobile service plans, although not much else is known. It’s not clear whether the new Bell partnership will include a bundling element.

As in the United States, Quibi will launch in Canada on April 6.

The monthly prices in Canada will be C$6.99 with advertising, or C$9.99 without ads. In the U.S., the prices are $4.99 with ads and $7.99 without.

Earlier this week, Quibi — led by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman as chairman and CEO, respectively — announced it had obtained $750 million in new funding. That brings the startup’s total backing to $1.75 billion, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Quibi said the new infusion includes some $400 million that was secured at the end of last year, but did not reveal the identities of the latest investors, or how the new funding values the company.

Movie/TV studio backers that were announced last year include Walt Disney, 21st Century Fox, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Viacom, AT&T’s WarnerMedia, Lionsgate, MGM, ITV and Entertainment One.

Quibi also said last year that it had already met its first year advertising goal of $150 million. In October, it named 10 major advertisers that had signed on: Discover, General Mills, T-Mobile, Taco Bell, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, ABInBev, Walmart, Progressive, and Google.

For video episodes under five minutes in length, viewers will see a pre-roll 6-second or 10-second, non-skippable spot, according to the company. Some of these commercials could “serialize.” Longer episodes will see commercials running 15 seconds long.