Such things have never been seen on TV before. A new application is coming out

It all started in October 2025, when Adam Mosseri – the head of Instagram – spoke at the Screetime conference organized by Bloomberg. He then said directly that users are increasingly watching social media on TVs, so Instagram wants to be there too. He did not provide a date or specific platforms.

A few weeks later it became clear that these were not empty words. In December 2025, the application appeared on Amazon Fire TV in the United States on a test basis. Now, in February 2026, the topic has moved on. Instagram has come to Google TV – again, only in the US for now, with the promise of expansion to additional countries and platforms.

Many years ago, the idea of ​​watching video in a vertical format on a TV that was designed for full-screen formats was joked about. Meta solved this problem in a way that is familiar to anyone who has watched TikTok or YouTube Shorts on TV. So the video only takes up about a third of the screen, and the remaining space is filled with the interface – comments, reaction buttons, and description.

It’s not an elegant solution, but it works. You can jump between video reels (left and right) using the remote control – almost the same way you do it with your finger on a smartphone.

As for other platforms, Meta does not yet reveal the implementation schedule on other Smart TV systems. One might suspect that Tizen (Samsung) and WebOS (LG) are next in line – these are the two most popular TV systems in the world. For now, however, users of these platforms must wait.

Mosseri also made it clear that Instagram on TV will not be a platform with its own content – no series, licensed films or purchased rights. The application is intended to be a window only to what users themselves create and we know from the smartphone version.