Instagram is also extending Reels beyond the phone screen, testing a big-screen experience with a new Amazon Fire TV feature called IG for TV. The app also brings vertically shot, short-form video to the living room with a lean-back interface, personalized recommendations and remote-friendly controls. It’s the strongest indication yet that Meta is seeking a bona fide seat at the connected TV table, where viewing time and ad budgets have been slowly but surely migrating.
What IG for TV Brings to the Living Room
IG for TV replicates the well-known Reels feed but tailors it to the couch. Videos start playing automatically, complete with quick skip controls to save viewers from endless scrolling. Content is organized into channels and categories including comedy, music and lifestyle, providing users a frictionless way to browse without having to pay the attention tax of typing searches one letter at a time using their TV remote.
The experience is tailored to your Instagram tastes, featuring accounts and topics with which you already engage. You can match the TV app with your phone and add up to five accounts per household, or spin up a new account specifically for living-room watching. Basic all-around interactions are available on TV, such as liking a Reel or surfing to see what comments it has attracted and resharing the content.
Crucially, this is not a revival of IGTV, the moribund long-form experiment Instagram killed off in 2022. IG for TV preserves Reels’ short, swipeable DNA but rethinks it to fit a “channel-surfing” mentality: minimal friction, infinite play and topic-based discovery that lends itself well to the remote control.
Why Connected TV Is the Next Battleground
It’s TV screens where minutes add up. In The Gauge, Nielsen has consistently shown YouTube to be the most-viewed streamer on U.S. TV sets, frequently representing about 9–10% of total television usage. That dominance is driving the opportunity: The biggest social video players are no longer just fighting inside phone apps, they’re jockeying for control of the largest screen in your house.
Ad dollars are following. U.S. connected TV ad spending will exceed $30 billion in 2024, according to eMarketer, fueled by targeting that’s more robust than linear TV and longer time spent than mobile. For Meta, the shift to TV opens up opportunities to serve more high-impact ad formats, including a co-viewing metric opportunity and safer brand environments — particularly in curated topic channels where the context is evident.
The development also dovetails with Instagram’s publicly stated position. At a recent industry event, Instagram’s leader said the company should have investigated a TV app earlier and underscored that TV is an increasingly significant surface for viewing short-form video. TL;DR: If lean-back watch time is where the attention aggregation is happening, Instagram wants Reels in that rotation.
Design Challenges and Creator Upside for TV Reels
Short, vertical video on a wide TV presents practical challenges to consider: pillarboxing, the readability of captions from 10 feet away and remote-first interactions. You can expect Instagram to rely more heavily on bigger typography and tighter safe zones, as well as UI overlays that weigh the likelihood of continued play against frequency of taps. In such an environment, autoplay and channelized browsing are perfectly matched.
TV distribution may change the equation for creators. But Reels filmed with clean, tight framing; on-screen text sized for distance; and good audio mixing could outperform. Higher average session lengths on TV can support completion rates and retention curves which contribute to recommendation algorithms. Once Instagram adds TV-aware analytics — consider average watch time broken down by type of screen — creators will be even better versed in how to cater their content toward the couch.
Why You Should Start with Amazon Fire TV
Fire TV is one of two major streaming platforms in U.S. homes, and it is often ranked alongside Roku by researchers such as Parks Associates. Starting on Fire TV is an instant way for Instagram to reach millions of smart TVs, sticks and set-top boxes inside a mature ecosystem with solid data collection built in, which could prepare it for rolling this out elsewhere.
There’s also a practical synergy: Fire TV users are conditioned to quick-hop between different apps for entertainment anyway. Reels’ fast-paced cadence serves the “I have five minutes” use case that often determines whether a household will continue watching a show, switch to live sports or sample short-form video.
Competitive Landscape and What’s Next for IG on TV
YouTube’s TV lead is a high bar, and TikTok has already planted flags on connected TV platforms with its own big-screen app. Instagram’s point of differentiation is going to be depth of personalization and the cross-device loop: discover on TV, save to mobile, engage later, repeat. If the pilot is well-received, look for a quick expansion to Roku, Google TV and flagship smart TV brands.
Key signals to watch for are average session length on TV, TV-originated shares/likes, and creator adoption of TV-aware formats. On the business side, expect Reels ad units modeled after TV, category sponsorships around channels of content such as comedy or music, and eventual hooks into shopping if Instagram leans hard into QR flows to drive second-screen conversions.
For the moment, in other words, IG for TV on Amazon Fire TV is a simple proposition: Reels, reimagined as a sofa-based experience. If Instagram can get casual channel surfers to develop a short-form viewing habit on the biggest screen, it could not only widen Reels’ figures — it could change how social videos vie for primetime exposure.
