Instagram Takes On Netflix With TV App Push

The company is also widening where the app runs. The Instagram TV app, already available on Amazon Fire TV and Google TV, is now rolling out to Samsung TVs. More installed screens means more living rooms where Instagram is one button away on the home screen.

How the new TV experience works

The app is getting several mechanics borrowed from how people actually watch television. When users open it, they will see channels tailored to the creators and topics they follow. Instagram frames channels as a way to make it easier to find videos a group can enjoy together, whether that is comedy, sports, or a specific creator.

There is also a dedicated section being tested for horizontal videos. That detail matters more than it sounds. Instagram was built vertical-first, and a TV is a horizontal screen. A native home for landscape video is the groundwork for genuine living-room viewing rather than a phone format awkwardly stretched across a 55-inch panel.

Casting is the other big addition. Users can now send Reels, or content from their Saved tab, straight from their phone to the TV. And the app now surfaces other users Stories, where it previously only played Reels natively. The phone stays the remote and the discovery engine; the TV becomes the screen.

If you maintain the Instagram app on a connected TV, expect format and layout changes to arrive gradually as these features roll out. Channels, horizontal sections, and casting are being tested, so behavior may differ between devices and regions in the coming weeks.

Why this is a shot at the streamers

For years Instagram has measured itself against TikTok and YouTube, the two platforms that own short and mid-form video attention. Aiming at Netflix and Prime Video is a different ambition entirely. Those services compete for the long, leaned-back hours of the evening, not the quick scroll while waiting in line.

The strategic logic is about where attention is migrating. Instagram already wins eyes on phones. The living room is the one screen where it has been a guest rather than a host. Longer-form and episodic content is how you justify a permanent spot on the TV home screen instead of an occasional cast from a handset.

It also leans on something the traditional streamers cannot easily replicate: creators. Netflix commissions studios and licenses catalogs. Instagram already has millions of creators producing native content and live broadcasts. If those creators can build serialized series and live shows that people schedule time around, Instagram gets streaming-style engagement without streaming-style production budgets.

What to watch over the next 24 to 72 hours

This is early and experimental, so temper expectations. Instagram described these as things it is exploring and testing, not a finished product. Here is what is worth tracking in the immediate window.

• The Samsung rollout pace. Watch how quickly the app actually appears on Samsung TVs and whether it ships with the new channels and horizontal sections or arrives in a more basic form first.
• Creator reaction. The whole strategy hinges on creators making longer and episodic content. Early signals from large accounts about whether they will produce series will tell you if this has legs.
• How the Series feature behaves. Since Meta is testing Series for Reels on Instagram and Facebook, watch how serialized content is presented and whether it nudges viewing time upward.
• Format consistency. Because channels, casting, and horizontal video are rolling out and being tested, expect uneven availability across Fire TV, Google TV, and Samsung in the near term.

The bottom line

Instagram moving into longer-form, episodic, and live formats is not a side project. It is the platform trying to convert its enormous creator base and mobile attention into living-room hours, the same hours Netflix and Prime Video have spent a decade defending. The features are still experiments, but the target is now explicit. The next signal to watch is whether creators show up to fill the new formats and whether viewers treat the TV app as a destination rather than a second screen.

Source: TechCrunch