Instagram wants you to watch 90-minute videos on your TV

Meta

Instagram is once again experimenting with longform video in the hopes its users will watch podcasts and other videos on their TVs. The company is testing a new horizontal video format called "features" that supports clips up to 90 minutes long, and introducing a handful of other features meant to draw more users to this type of content.

For now, only a few creators that have struck individual deals with Meta will be able to create longform content for the platform. The company is currently targeting comedians and podcasters, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The horizontal videos will be viewable in the Instagram app, but the company is hoping the new format will push people to its dedicated TV apps as well.

In a video, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said that one of his concerns with enabling longer videos was that it could cannibalize engagement with the shortform content users currently consume. But he said he hoped the longer videos would end up being "symbiotic" with the shorter content. For example, people who watch a few clips from a podcast or comedy special as Reels may want to watch the full episode on their TV. 

Instagram has been laying the groundwork for this for some time. The company introduced its first TV app last year with a version of Reels for Fire TV and it's now adding an Apple TV app to its lineup, which also includes Samsung and Google TV devices. The TV apps are also expanding to support Stories posts and live streams. Instagram has also been testing "series," which allows creators to link multiple shortform videos together to make it easier for people to find related videos from the same creator. This episodic content will also now be available in the TV app.

The changes are Meta's latest attempt to take on YouTube and make its platform more friendly to the type of content that's typically come with more lucrative ad deals. The company told THR that it plans to work with creators to find brand partners if they don't already have relationships with advertisers.

Of course, this isn't the first time Meta has tried to take on YouTube in this way. The company made a similar pitch in 2018, when it launched IGTV, a separate app for longer videos. It never gained much traction, and it shut down the app in 2022. In his announcement video, Mosseri said that Instagram's latest push for longer video would likely "take some time to get right" but that Meta is "very committed to it long term."