Instagram is getting rid of IGTV, in a way

Instagram is finally acknowledging that IGTV, its first big push in the video, hasn’t worked.

Today, the company renames IGTV to “Instagram TV” and gets rid of the exclusive IGTV video format. Videos posted to Instagram’s main stream can now be up to 60 minutes long – a length previously reserved for IGTV videos – and you won’t have to leave the main app to view them anymore.

An Instagram spokesperson said the IGTV app, now called the Instagram TV app, will remain a “destination for people to visit with the intention of watching a video.”

Image: Instagram

IGTV was introduced in June 2018 and was basically intended to become a mobile equivalent of YouTube, creating a space for discovering and watching longer videos. But the longer format never took. And just two months later, an app called TikTok launched in the United States.

Instagram has since refocused its video efforts to compete with TikTok with its short video format Reels. The reels launched in August 2020 and Instagram has aggressively pushed them forward, giving them center stage in the app navigation, starting to sell ads and post them on Facebook’s news feed.

One major downside to Reels, however, is that it doesn’t offer creators a consistent way to get paid, like YouTube and TikTok do. Facebook plans to pay creators $ 1 billion by the end of 2022. Some of that money has gone to the creators of Reels, but it’s not a dedicated system for videographers to get paid – still a good way. to encourage people to do things on your app.