Instagram tests 90-minute widescreen video to challenge YouTube's grip on creators

Instagram is making its most direct run at YouTube yet, announcing a test of a new video format called 'Features' that lets creators upload horizontal, widescreen videos up to 90 minutes long — more than 30 times the length of a standard Reel. The catch: the platform has not said how, or whether, it will share the ad revenue those videos could generate.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri and VP of Product Tessa Lyons announced the format together, with Mosseri acknowledging he had resisted long-form video on the platform for years. His concern was that long videos would crowd out the likes, shares, and DMs that make Instagram feel social rather than just a streaming service.

For a long time, I have been against doing long-form video on Instagram.— Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram

What changed his mind, according to Mosseri, was a framework for making short- and long-form content work together rather than compete. A companion tool called 'Clips as Reels' lets creators excerpt short segments from a Feature and post them as standalone Reels; those clips automatically link back to the full video. The idea mirrors how podcasters and comedians already promote longer work through short clips on other platforms.

What you're now going to be able to do is, you see a clip of a podcast that you love, you can just click and continue watching or watch the full video, and you'll be able to dive in and see the whole thing because creators are going to be able to link these Reels to their overall feature.— Tessa Lyons, VP of Product, Instagram

Features are currently in a small US test and were previously piloted with creators in Brazil. Instagram plans to expand to tens of thousands of US creators over the coming months, according to tubefilter.com. There is no exclusivity requirement — creators can post the same content elsewhere, including YouTube, according to Digital Trends.

The TV screen is central to Instagram's pitch. Lyons said horizontal, long-form content works better on a big screen, and Instagram's TV app — already live on Samsung, Fire TV, and Google TV — is now expanding to Apple TV, according to Digital Trends. The Verge reports the TV app launched first as a Reels-focused experience on Amazon Fire TV devices and has since added the ability to watch Stories.

The business logic is straightforward: more watch time in living rooms means more valuable ad inventory. YouTube has built its creator economy on exactly that premise. The platform said last year it paid more than $100 billion to creators, artists, and media companies over the previous four years, with creators in its Partner Program receiving 55% of ad revenue from their videos, according to TechCrunch.

Instagram's current monetization for creators is far thinner. Mosseri described the platform's performance-based payment program as small and money-losing.

You can get paid by the platform directly, you can get paid by a fan, and you can get paid by a brand. And right now, the way that it works on Instagram primarily is you primarily get paid by brands. Some people get paid by fans. We have still a small performance-based program, but … we spend more money than we make back by a long shot, and so it doesn't really make sense to scale up because we're just burning capital.— Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram

When TechCrunch asked Meta directly about long-term monetization for Features, the answer was deliberately vague.

It's too early to share a long-term monetization model, but we're exploring ways for creators to earn from brands, fans, and Instagram, including performance-based incentives. Over time, we think there will be compounding benefits for creators to tell new stories, reach new audiences, and find new partners, which should lead to many monetization opportunities.— Meta spokesperson

Digital Trends reports that existing ad placements will carry over into longer videos and that Instagram says it will help creators without current brand deals find new ones — but that stops well short of a revenue-share commitment.

This is not Instagram's first attempt at long-form video. IGTV launched in 2018 and was quietly shut down, a failure Mosseri referenced in his announcement. The platform is also testing two other video-related features: 'Series,' a hub for episodic Reels on creator profiles aimed at the growing microdrama audience, planned for the US by the end of this year or early next year according to Digital Trends; and live video surfaced in the Reels tab to non-followers, currently testing in Indonesia and Brazil with a US expansion planned for next year.

Reels is still going to be a core part of Instagram. But when you want to go deeper with the creators you love and the content that they're creating, you should be able to do that on Instagram.— Tessa Lyons, VP of Product, Instagram

Whether creators follow depends almost entirely on what Instagram eventually offers them financially. Short-form video has proven difficult to monetize across every platform that has tried — Instagram, TikTok included — precisely because there is less room to place ads. Long-form video solves that problem structurally. The question is who captures the upside.

Why it matters — Instagram's push into 90-minute widescreen video is the clearest signal yet that Meta intends to compete directly with YouTube for creator loyalty and living-room ad dollars — but without a revenue-share model, creators have little financial reason to choose Instagram over the platform that already pays them.

Reported by theverge.com, techcrunch.com, digitaltrends.com, tubefilter.com