IGTV

Instagram's vertical answer to YouTube, launched with an orange button nobody pressed and folded into Reels

Shut down
19902026

IGTV was Instagram's long-form vertical video service, announced by Kevin Systrom on 20 June 2018 with its own standalone app and a button in the main app. Videos could run up to an hour for verified accounts, and the format was full-screen vertical. It never found an audience against YouTube and then TikTok; Instagram removed the button in 2020, merged the video back into the main app, and shut down the standalone app in March 2022.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2018
  2. 20 June 2018 Launch
    IGTV is announced

    Standalone app, vertical video up to an hour.

  3. 2019
  4. May 2019 Feature
    Previews of IGTV videos appear in the main feed

    An attempt to send it an audience.

  5. 2020
  6. 2020 Decline
    The orange IGTV button is removed from Instagram
  7. 2021
  8. October 2021 Rebrand
    IGTV is merged into Instagram Video
  9. 2022
  10. 28 February 2022 Shutdown announced
    Instagram announces the app is closing
  11. March 2022 Shutdown
    The standalone IGTV app is pulled

    Existing videos stay inside Instagram.

The site through time

Browse instagram.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Instagram (Meta Platforms) 2018–2022 Founded Announced by Kevin Systrom; Meta after the 2012 Facebook acquisition

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Instagram said on 28 February 2022 that it was closing the standalone IGTV app and dropping in-stream video adverts, and pulled the app from the stores in March 2022. Long vertical video moved into the main Instagram app, where it was merged with Reels; the IGTV brand was retired.

Our analysis: IGTV was built for a competitor that never showed up. Instagram had watched teenagers spend hours on YouTube and assumed the answer was long vertical video with its own app and its own button; the answer turned out to be short vertical video with a recommendation engine, which is what TikTok shipped. Once Reels existed, the company was maintaining two video products and an app that at most about seven million people had ever installed against more than a billion Instagram users. The orange button was quietly removed in 2020, which is when IGTV actually died; the 2022 announcement was the paperwork.

History [edit]

A television channel shaped like a phone

Kevin Systrom introduced IGTV on 20 June 2018 at an event in San Francisco, next to creators including Lele Pons. The pitch was that television had been made for the wrong screen: video should be vertical, full screen, and it should start playing the moment you open the app, like turning on a set. Regular accounts could post up to ten minutes, larger and verified accounts up to an hour, and IGTV got both a standalone app and an orange button in the corner of Instagram itself.

The creators showed up. The audience did not. People used Instagram for photographs, Stories and, increasingly, for scrolling; a ten-minute vertical documentary was a different sort of attention, and the people who wanted that were already on YouTube. The standalone app was downloaded by a few million users at most, against Instagram's billion.

Reels took the space

In 2020 Instagram removed the IGTV button from the home screen, a quiet admission that the entry point was not working, and launched Reels, a short-video product built to answer TikTok. From there IGTV was slowly dismantled: the IGTV name was dropped from posts, video was merged into a single Instagram Video format in 2021, and on 28 February 2022 Instagram confirmed it was closing the standalone IGTV app and ending the in-stream video adverts that had funded it. The app came out of the stores in March 2022.

Nothing was deleted. Old IGTV uploads still play inside Instagram as ordinary video, which makes this one of the gentler shutdowns: the product went away, the archive did not.

The domain today

There is no separate IGTV any more. Long video lives inside instagram.com as Instagram Video, and the short-form space that IGTV was built to occupy belongs to Reels.

Similar projects

Vine Six seconds, looped forever 2013–2017 Periscope Live from anywhere, until the money ran out 2015–2021 Mixer The $100 million assault on Twitch 2016–2020 Quibi $1.75 billion, six months, gone 2020–2020 Justin.tv One man's life stream that became Twitch 2007–2014 Musical.ly The lip-sync app that became TikTok 2014–2018

Sources [edit]

  1. Instagram is shutting down its standalone IGTV app TechCrunch 28 February 2022 [archived]
  2. Instagram announces closure of separate IGTV app Social Media Today 1 March 2022 [archived]
  3. Instagram's IGTV app discontinued iDownloadBlog 1 March 2022 [archived]
  4. IGTV is officially dead as Instagram kills the standalone app Android Headlines 2 March 2022 [archived]

Last verified: 18 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).