• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Looking for the future of video for your consumers -- the "next frontier"? Apparently, it’s "TV."

Tessa Lyons, vice president of product for Instagram, reportedly said that for its social-media platform, “TV is in so many ways the next frontier of that for us” in reference to the social-media effort to find new audiences for its creators.

This comes as its Instagram for TV feature looks to promote "horizontal video."

This is what that TV screen offers versus that of the "vertical" video ("verts" to some), which has dominated social-media platforms on mobile devices.

Recently the Instagram feature has expanded to include Samsung TV devices from only Amazon Fire and Google TV products.

In addition, Instagram is also testing an easy effort to allow users to cast the mobile-based "Reels" onto their TV screens.

All of this makes sense of course where creators of content continue to search for different audiences. 

It comes at the same time digital-first brands -- which continue to ply the grounds of media schedules on niche, digital platforms -- look to expand their awareness efforts through national TV/premium streamers to get top of the funnel wide-scale brand attention.

This comes as media fractionalization grows, while at the same time there is consolidation and contraction. 

Think about Paramount Skydance and its deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, especially around Paramount+ and HBO Max -- and the Fox-Roku announced merger, with a focus around Tubi and Roku Channel.

Creators -- like big movie TV production companies are looking for scale as well.

It is not just about expected expansion of "micro-dramas" -- the one- to three-minute-long serialized episodes -- but more longer forms. Perhaps episodes five, ten minutes, or even longer pieces of content. 

You know, like on TV.