TikTok is now playing on more connected TVs — bringing a stream of viral videos and memes to the living room.
The short-form video app, which claims to have more than 1 billion monthly users, has launched the TikTok TV app on Google TV and other Android TV operating system devices, LG Smart TVs, and Samsung Smart TVs in North America. The move comes three weeks after TikTok splashed down on Amazon’s Fire TV platform in the U.S. and Canada.
For TikTok, which is owned by Chinese internet giant ByteDance, the move underscores its positioning of the platform as primarily an entertainment destination, not a social media play. The aim is to bring what it calls “little bursts of joy” into a communal viewing environment that lets families and friends watch videos together — in the hopes of getting an incremental lift in views and ad impressions.
YouTube viewing on TVs has continued to surge, and TikTok wants to follow in those footsteps. TikTok earlier this year extended the maximum length of videos to 3 minutes, to encourage creators to post longer-form clips to keep users engaged for longer periods of time.
The TikTok TV app lets users log in to to watch content from “For You” and “Following” feeds, including the most-liked and most-viewed videos across a range of categories, from gaming to comedy and from food to animals. On TVs, there’s also a “Discover” page to display additional content, creators and categories on TikTok.
On LG smart TVs, the TikTok app is available for 2018 models and later (those with webOS4.0 or higher).
