Instagram Is Coming for Your Living Room — And Now Competes Directly With YouTube for the Biggest Screen

On June 22, 2026, Instagram announced a major expansion of its TV app in the United States. The app is now available on Samsung Smart TVs (2020 models and newer), joining existing support for Amazon Fire TV and Google TV. Together, these platforms cover the majority of connected TV devices in the U.S.

This move signals Instagram’s full-throated entry into the living room, where it aims to turn casual phone scrolling into a shared, big-screen experience — and directly challenge YouTube’s long-held dominance as the default video destination on TVs.

New Features Designed for the Big Screen

The update brings several practical improvements tailored for television viewing:

Interest-based channels — Curated feeds around topics like comedy, sports, or favorite creators, making it easier for groups to discover and watch content together.
Stories on the big screen — Catch up on friends’ and creators’ Stories without huddling around a phone.
Phone-to-TV casting — Send Reels (including from your Saved tab) directly from your phone to the TV, currently available on Google TV and Fire TV.
Dedicated space for horizontal video — Horizontal content now has a proper home, optimized for the TV’s aspect ratio.

These features emphasize shared watching — “friends and family watch together, pass the remote, and swap recommendations in real time,” as Meta noted in the announcement.

The Bigger Shift: Long-Form, Lives, and Series

The most forward-looking part of the announcement is what Instagram is testing: longer-form creator videos, live streams on TV, and episodic series.

This is Instagram finally aligning its product with how many creators already behave. A single Reel functions as a unit of distribution. A well-executed series, however, becomes a product — it builds recognition, encourages habitual return viewing, and deepens audience relationships.

Instagram is adding native support for Series (a format TikTok has offered for over three years). This allows creators to organize episodes into a cohesive narrative or learning journey that viewers can follow over time.

Proof of Concept: Chloe Shih’s “30 Lessons by 30”

Instagram Is Coming for Your Living Room — And Now Competes Directly With YouTube for the Biggest Screen One of the strongest real-world examples of this format’s power comes from creator Chloe Shih.

A former product leader at Discord, TikTok, and Meta who was laid off, Shih went all-in on content creation.

She grew her Instagram following significantly and then launched a high-quality daily series called “30 Lessons by 30” — a thoughtful, well-produced set of 30 short videos reflecting on lessons from her 20s.

Instagram Is Coming for Your Living Room — And Now Competes Directly With YouTube for the Biggest Screen The results were dramatic: the series helped her attract over 700,000 new followers in roughly four months. She has since built a substantial audience across platforms (including strong growth on LinkedIn and YouTube) and secured partnerships with brands such as Notion, Amazon, Loom, HP, Duolingo, and LinkedIn.

Her content stands out for its quality, consistency, and career/ life-advice angle — making her a prime example of a creator who appeals strongly to B2B companies looking for top-of-funnel reach among ambitious professionals.

Shih’s success demonstrates exactly why Instagram’s new direction matters: serialized, high-value content on the platform can drive massive audience growth and commercial opportunities that short, standalone Reels alone often cannot sustain as effectively.

Horizontal Video Was Just the Beginning

Observers have already noticed more horizontal videos appearing in Instagram’s main feed in recent months (roughly 5–10% in some experiences).

The TV expansion and dedicated horizontal video section suggest this was deliberate preparation — moving the platform beyond its vertical-first origins toward formats that feel native on larger screens.

What This Means

Instagram is no longer content to be “just” the home of short vertical video. By bringing Reels, Stories, channels, and soon longer series and lives to the TV, it is positioning itself as a full-spectrum video platform that can compete for the primary screen in homes.

For creators, this opens new opportunities:

Better tools to build loyal, returning audiences through series.
Potential for deeper storytelling and live engagement on the biggest screen.
A pathway to grow beyond algorithm-dependent short-form virality.

For viewers, it means more ways to discover and enjoy Instagram content together without defaulting to YouTube.

The living room has long been YouTube’s territory. Instagram’s latest moves show it is no longer content to watch from the sidelines. The battle for the biggest screen is officially on.