TikTok announced that it is expanding its platform just before the Thanksgiving holidays in the United States. Previously, the social media company launched its TV app in North America in partnership with Amazon Fire TV.
On Nov. 23, TikTok said it will roll out its TV app to more platforms across North America, including Android TV OS devices, Google TV, some LG Smart TVs and Samsung Smart TVs.
TikTok TV App Roll Out
The TikTok TV app is set to redesign the popular video app for the big screen. Like its mobile version, the app offers access to both a user's "For You" and "Following" feeds when logged in, according to TechCrunch.
Users will also be able to see the "Discover" page that features some of the popular content across the platform, including in categories like gaming, food, comedy, sports, travel, and animals.
However, unlike on smartphones--where users have to swipe up and down to go through the video, the TV app has an AutoPlay feature that lets you go through your feed continuously without interruptions.
The app comes with a dimmer version of the video placed in the background if you wish to use the vertically shot videos through your screen to make the experience more interesting instead of just the black bars on the sides that fill the screen, according to The Verge.
In the past, TikTok had offered a TikTok TV app for Google TV and Android TV in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France but had yet to bring that version of the app to users in the United States and Canada.
Also, TikTok launched its TV app on Samsung TVs in the United Kingdom in 2020. Samsung said it would roll out the app to most of the 2021 smart TVs in the United States later this year.
TikTok also now says that the new TV app will be accessible in LG Smart TV models from 2018 to 2021 as long as it runs webOS 4.0 through webOS 6.0. This feature will put TikTok in direct competition with YouTube, according to Engadget.
Video App in TV Screens
Google's video app already has a strong presence on TV screens, where more than 100 million users in the United States watch YouTube and YouTube TV on their screens.
Also, third-party research from eMarketer found that more than half of YouTube viewers in the United States, which is estimated around 113.1 million people, can now watch through a connected TV device.
However, a lot of those users may no longer be interested in short videos. Google said that the watch time of YouTube content over 30 minutes long had increased by 90% in a year.
That could point to TV viewers' interest in longer-form video content than smartphone users. With plans for its TV app in the future, this may also have been a factor in TikTok's decision to expand its maximum video length to three minutes earlier this year.
TikTok currently has a billion monthly users, but that includes a lot of markets that do not have access to the TikTok TV app yet.
