Instagram Is Targeting Your Living Room With a Reels-Focused TV App
Instagram is taking its short-form video push off the phone and into the living room.
Meta announced Tuesday that it is beginning tests of a new Instagram for TV app in the U.S., available through Amazon Fire TV streaming devices. The move signals the company’s growing ambition to position Instagram as a major video destination beyond smartphones, placing it in more direct competition with TikTok and YouTube.
The new app centers on Reels, Instagram’s TikTok-style short videos typically created by individual users. On TV, those Reels will be viewable, shareable and recommended through Instagram’s algorithm, similar to how they appear on mobile.
Tessa Lyons, Instagram’s vice president of product, said Meta plans to bring the TV app to additional device makers over time, though no partners were named. In an interview with CNBC, Lyons emphasized that the focus right now is on building the right viewing experience rather than rushing to scale advertising on television.
“We think we probably have a lot more work to do to really make sure that we’re bringing people the content they love on mobile in a way that really makes sense for them and feels designed for TV,” Lyons said. “That’s where we’re going to be focused in 2026 as well as bringing it to more people and more devices, and, down the line, we’ll certainly think more about monetization.”
Reels on the TV app will remain vertical and will not be reformatted for wider screens. The content will also stay short-form, limited to videos three minutes or less. Meta previously experimented with longer videos through IGTV, which launched in 2018 and was shut down in 2022 as the company shifted heavily toward Reels.
“Down the line, we’ll think about if we want to move into slightly longer content,” Lyons said.
The TV app will organize Reels into interest-based channels such as sports, music and travel. Users can link up to five Instagram accounts to one shared TV profile, with content standards designed for a broad audience, including restrictions on sensitive material for teens.