Instagram for TV is expanding to Samsung smart TVs across the United States, making the app available on most connected TV devices in the country. Goal announced on Monday That expansion comes with several new features, including interest-based channels, phone-to-TV casting, and the ability to view Stories on the big screen.
Samsung’s release covers smart TVs from the 2020 model year and later. Instagram for TV first launched on Amazon Fire TV devices in December 2025 and then expanded to Google TV in February 2026. With Samsung now included, the app reaches the three largest connected TV platforms in the US market.
More significant than the device expansion is what Meta is building next. The company said it is exploring longer-form video formats for the TV app, including episodic series that unfold over multiple episodes and Live on TV, which would bring creators’ live streams to the big screen for the first time.
The episodic series format is based on a feature Meta began testing on mobile devices earlier this month. On June 2, the company began implementing “Series” to select creators on Instagram and Facebook, allowing them to group Reels into sequential episodes with a dedicated hub on their profile. Viewers who discover an episode in their feed can access the entire series, save it, or follow it for updates.
Meta told TechCrunch that it is considering ways to monetize the Series feature, but did not share details. The company is also testing a dedicated home for horizontal videos within the TV app, an acknowledgment that content designed for phone screens doesn’t always translate well to a 55-inch screen.
The new Channels feature organizes Reels into interest-based categories, including comedy, sports, music, and trending content, making it easy to browse without a specific creator in mind. Casting allows users to cast Reels from their phone to the TV with a few taps, including videos from the Saved tab, a feature already available on Fire TV and Google TV.
It is difficult to ignore the strategic context. YouTube had a 13 percent share of all U.S. TV viewing time according to Nielsen’s Media Distributor Gauge, the largest share since the metric began tracking in late 2023. YouTube’s connected TV business is growing faster than any traditional streaming service, and every minute a viewer spends watching Reels on a TV is a minute not spent on YouTube or Netflix.
TikTok is struggling with its own content quality issuesand a recent Kapwing study found that nearly 60 percent of videos shown to new accounts are AI-generated garbage. Instagram’s push into the living room comes at a time when its main short-form competitor faces credibility issues on the content side, potentially giving Meta an opportunity to position Reels as the higher-quality alternative.
Meta has been investing heavily in creators to drive content flow. The company launched Creator Fast Track in March.paying established TikTok and YouTube creators up to three thousand dollars per month to post Reels on Facebook. In 2025, Facebook paid creators nearly $3 billion through its monetization programs, a 35 percent increase year over year, with 60 percent of that amount going to Reels.
The living room push also represents Meta’s second serious attempt to bring Instagram to TV screens. IGTV launched in 2018 as Instagram’s answer to YouTubeoffering videos up to an hour long, but the feature was a notorious failure. Only seven million people downloaded the standalone app, Instagram removed the IGTV button from its home screen in 18 months, and the format was quietly retired in favor of Reels.
The difference this time is that Instagram is not trying to compete with YouTube on YouTube’s terms. Instead of asking creators to produce hour-long videos for a mobile audience, the TV app takes existing content, short reels, and puts them on a larger screen. Episodic series and longer formats are gradually being layered on top of each other rather than being launched as a standalone product.
Connected TV advertising is also a growing revenue opportunity for Meta. Advertiser intent to increase spending on connected TV is among the strongest of any channel, with a net intent of 82 percent according to industry surveys, compared to 56 percent for paid social networks. Bringing Instagram’s ad-supported Reels to TV screens gives Meta access to a new pool of advertising budgets that have traditionally gone to streaming services and broadcast networks.
There are notable limitations. The TV app is currently available only in the US with no international expansion dates announced, and the episodic series and Live on TV formats are described as explorations rather than confirmed releases. Meta didn’t provide a timeline for any of the features, and the horizontal video center is also still in testing.
Streaming accounted for nearly 48 percent of total U.S. TV viewing time in December 2025, according to Nielsen, the highest share on record. That figure has continued to rise in 2026, and Meta is betting that social video can claim a significant share of the attention in the living room alongside traditional streaming services.
Whether Instagram for TV becomes a daily habit or a curiosity depends on whether the content can hold attention longer than a quick scroll. The episodic series format and live streams suggest that Meta understands that and is trying to give viewers a reason to stay on the app instead of switching to something with a plot.
