Instagram Removes the IGTV Button As People Aren’t Using It

Instagram has rolled out support for landscape video formats on IGTV.

IGTV is Instagram’s long-format video app.

(Photo: The Quint)

Instagram for long has been trying to involve a lot more of its users on the app’s video streaming platform, more commonly known as IGTV. However, it seems that people haven’t found a liking to it, which is why the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app has decided to drop IGTV from the app’s home page.

This means that users will no longer see the IGTV icon on top of their Instagram feed.

Facebook says that users are identifying what they want to want through their feed rather than the standalone platform which is why Facebook has made this move.

Facebook, quoted in a TechCrunch report, has said, it wants to keep the app as simple as possible which is why it is choosing to remove IGTV based on the learning from community feedback.

It’s been almost 18-months since the launch of the IGTV applications and approximately 7 million people have downloaded the standalone app. Instagram currently has more than a billion users.

“As we’ve continued to work on making it easier for people to create and discover IGTV content, we’ve learned that most people are finding IGTV content through previews in Feed, the IGTV channel in Explore, creators’ profiles and the standalone app. Very few are clicking into the IGTV icon in the top right corner of the home screen in the Instagram app,”

Facebook company spokesperson to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/18/igtv-button-gone/">TechCrunch</a>

One of the reasons for the slow growth of IGTV could be the fact that it’s still not a direct earning source for content producers on the platform. You don’t get ad revenue share on IGTV as they do from YouTube or Facebook Watch.

The only form of revenue Instagram has provided creators is reimbursement for production costs.

Compared to this, other video sharing apps like TikTok give creators a chance to earn money directly from the platform which is exactly why it has moved up the market charts in a short span of time, something that IGTV has not been able to replicate.