Disney+ adds live news feeds
Disney+ expanded its news content by adding 24/7 local news feeds from multiple ABC stations around the country. Subscribers can now watch live and on-demand content of local news broadcasts from ABC stations in eight major markets (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Raleigh-Durham, and Fresno). The local news streams feature live and breaking news, important weather updates, and community events. These local news feeds can be viewed across the country even outside your local market and viewers can switch between all eight feeds. The streams are available on the ABC News Hub and Live Hub.
The Circana Take:
- By integrating 24/7 local news — from weather alerts to community events — Disney+ strengthens its position as a daily-use platform rather than a purely entertainment-driven service. This can increase viewing frequency, improve retention, and reduce churn.
- Allowing subscribers to watch any of the eight ABC local feeds nationwide turns Disney+ into a unique aggregator of regional perspectives and live coverage. This added flexibility can attract viewers looking for broader local reporting than their own geography offers.
- By extending Reels to Google TV and Amazon Fire TV, Instagram is tapping into a household viewing environment traditionally dominated by long‑form streamers. This signals that the company believes they can create a consumer appetite for short‑form entertainment in the living‑room—broadening the definition of what drives engagement and total viewing minutes for streaming platforms.
Instagram’s TV app is expanding to Google TV devices
Instagram is expanding its Instagram for TV app to Google TV devices, following its launch on Amazon Fire TV in December. The app expands Reels viewing on larger screens beyond traditional mobile, and users can also browse posts from their Instagram feeds directly on their TVs. The new app is customized to each user, displaying reels based on the content they view on the Instagram app. Reels are grouped into categories such as comedy, music, and lifestyle and play automatically, so no scrolling is necessary. The app also lets you like, view comments, and reshare Reels. By bringing reels to TV, Instagram is looking to compete with YouTube, which controls the video sharing TV viewing experience.
The Circana Take:
- Instagram entering TV devices targets the exact territory where YouTube has had a massive share advantage: social video viewing on televisions. As Instagram grows share, platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and even streaming-first players may face increased competition for premium ad dollars associated with connected‑TV viewing.