Instagram to discontinue its standalone IGTV app

Meta owned social media platform Instagram has announced that it will be shutting down the standalone IGTV app. The company also confirmed that IGTV videos and other video-based content will remain available on the main Instagram app. 

A separate IGTV app was launched nearly four years ago in 2018 primarily to host longer vertical-format videos. Later Instagram merged its Feed Video and IGTV into Instagram Video in October last year. Instagram said that it is focusing on its short video platform TikTok rival Reels with continued investment in the future. 

“Video is a huge part of why people enjoy Instagram, and we love how our creator community uses it to express themselves, collaborate with others, and connect with their followers,” the company said in the blog post.

Instagram further wrote, “We believe this makes it easier for people to have all these features and abilities in the main app, and are excited to continue to simplify and improve video in the main Instagram app over the coming months.“

With this decision, in-stream video ads, earlier called IGTV ads, will also not be supported anymore. To compensate creators who were actively monetizing with in-stream video ads, the company will give them a temporary monthly payment based on their recent earnings. 

Instagram is exploring new ways to monetize and allow users to earn through their content. It will soon start testing a new Instagram ad experience to let creators earn revenue from ads on their Reels. The IGTV button from Instagram’s home page was dropped in early 2020 due to the lack of population among users.