Instagram is testing long-form horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long and expanding its TV app to Apple TV, challenging YouTube’s dominance in living-room streaming while omitting creator ad-revenue sharing for now.
On Monday, October 26, 2026, the Meta-owned platform announced a sweeping overhaul of its video strategy, introducing a widescreen format called “Features” designed for uploads spanning up to 90 minutes. Instagram is making a play for the living room. The format pushes the app far beyond its traditional diet of vertical Reels and quick snaps.
Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri revealed the format in a joint video with Vice President of Product Tessa Lyons, acknowledging a long-held resistance to extended viewing times.
Adam Mosseri and Tessa Lyons on Overcoming Long-Form Resistance
Mosseri admitted that he opposed long-form video for years. His primary concern centered on the core social fabric of the app.
One of my concerns has been, how do we make sure that we keep Instagram not just about entertainment, but also about connecting with friends.
Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram
Lyons argued that creators are evolving past simple 60-second clips, telling stories across multi-format episodic series and documentary-style pieces. He noted that spending 10 or 20 minutes watching a single video cuts into the time users spend sharing Reels and photos in direct messages (Variety).
Creators can upload full-length interviews, comedy specials, vlogs, and podcast episodes as widescreen features while slicing up to eight companion clips as Reels to point viewers toward the full show (Comic Basics). To bridge the gap, the platform is betting on a symbiotic loop.
Instagram Expands Television App to Apple TV
Alongside the mobile test, Instagram is expanding its television app footprint to Apple TV in the U.S., joining existing living-room apps on Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, and Samsung displays (BigGo Finance).
Early creator participants in the feature test include podcast host and Skims co-founder Emma Grede, beauty creator Monet McMichael, New York street interviewer Preston Rakovsky, and sports creator Donald De La Haye (The Hollywood Reporter). The company is also testing secondary screen controls that allow users to use their smartphones as remote controls, pause a video on mobile, and pick it up later on a TV screen (The Publish Press).
Instagram Declines to Launch Ad Revenue Sharing
Despite the direct challenge to YouTube—which paid out more than $100 billion to creators, artists, and media companies over a four-year window (Techcrunch) and offers qualified creators 55 percent of ad revenue (Comic Basics)—Instagram is not launching a comparable ad revenue-sharing model (Yahoo).
Mosseri noted that past broad monetization experiments failed to generate enough quality content to justify their capital cost, remarking that the platform spent more money than it made back by a wide margin (Business Insider).
| Platform Component | Current Status | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Features (Widescreen up to 90 min) | Testing in U.S. and Brazil | Select creators |
| Instagram TV App | Available on Samsung, Fire TV, Google TV, Apple TV | U.S. market |
| Linked Reels | Testing up to 8 clips per video | U.S. and Brazil |
While an Instagram spokesperson confirmed that the company is providing direct funding to select creators and exploring performance-based incentives (Yahoo), the lack of a permanent partner program leaves top podcasters and comedians weighing whether to shift primary uploads away from established hubs (Comic Basics). According to company spokesperson Megan Buckley, the format had already been in testing with a small group of creators in Brazil before expanding to a small test in the United States. Adam Mosseri described the relationship between short- and long-form video as symbiotic and noted that the push into longer content would take time to get right, while emphasizing that Meta is very committed to the initiative for the long term. This strategy builds on groundwork laid over the past year, though the platform previously made a similar push in 2018 with IGTV—a standalone app for longer videos that failed to gain meaningful traction and was ultimately shut down in 2022. Instagram is encouraging creators to upload longer videos, noting that Instagram-native shows with recurring episodes and creator-led content like Subway Takes and Brooklyn Coffee Shop benefit from audiences being able to binge material in order. An Instagram representative stated that the platform is directly funding longer-form content with some creators right now to support them, though it remains too early to share details regarding a long-term monetization model.
