If your image of Substack still begins with an email inbox, the company would like you to update it. On Thursday the newsletter platform rolled out a beta TV app for Apple TV and Google TV, bringing creators’ video posts and livestreams to the big screen.
The app looks familiar in a useful way: a personalized "For You" row sits front-and-center, surfacing recommended clips in a short-form style that echoes modern social apps. Subscribers—both free and paid—can sign in and watch on-demand video and live shows tied to the publications they follow. At launch there are limits: no previewing paid-only videos for free users yet, though Substack says paywalled previews and other features are on the roadmap.
What’s in the new app
Technically this is an extension of a strategy Substack has pursued for years. The company added video posts in 2022, expanded monetization for video over the past year, and opened livestreaming to publishers. The TV app brings those formats to a television-friendly interface, plus a handful of features Substack flagged for future updates: audio posts and read-alouds, improved search and discovery, in-app subscription upgrades, and dedicated publication pages that collect a creator’s shows. Those audio plans dovetail with broader moves in podcast and audio apps—something Apple and others have been pushing too, as seen in recent updates to Apple Podcasts.
Substack CEO Chris Best framed the app as a way to give longform creators a more immersive home on TV: shows, interviews and livestreams that invite settling in for longer sessions rather than endless scrolling. The company also hopes the app will encourage creators to experiment with series and longer formats that play better on a living-room screen. If you want one of the devices to try it yourself, Substack’s beta is available on Apple TV and Google TV platforms.
Why some writers pushed back
Reaction was swift—and not uniformly warm. Substack’s blog post filled with comments from writers and early users who feel the platform is drifting away from its original promise: a refuge for writers seeking direct reader relationships and a break from social-media instincts. “Please don’t do this. This is not YouTube. Elevate the written word,” read one common sentiment.
The unease is understandable. Over the last few years Substack has layered on short-form feeds, Notes (a tweet-like feature), sponsorship pilots, and multimillion-dollar incentives intended to lure creators from other platforms. To some founders and longtime newsletter authors, those moves signal a pivot from a text-first sanctuary into a broader social and video business—complete with the product choices and monetization pressures that come with scaling attention in the living room.
Substack has also been candid about experimenting with advertising and native sponsorships, which deepens the worry for those who prefer a subscription-only model. And while many creators—especially former TV anchors and podcasters—have found a lucrative home on the platform, others fear the platform’s identity is being reshaped by venture funding and competition for viewers.
The market logic (and the risk)
From a business perspective, the move makes sense. TV viewing of digital video is growing: platforms are increasingly placing Reels, podcasts and vertical clips onto television devices to capture longer sessions and higher ad rates. YouTube, Instagram and TikTok have all been pushing deeper into the living room; Nielsen and other measurement firms show a meaningful share of viewing has already migrated to connected-TV apps. For Substack, owning an app on TV is both a creator retention play and a way to expand how subscribers consume content.
But the same move carries trade-offs. Building a TV audience demands different discovery mechanics, investment in player stability and moderation for a broader set of media formats. It also intensifies the platform’s alignment with ad-driven attention models—something many of its earliest supporters are wary of.
How this could change creator behavior
Substack’s bet is that a TV presence will encourage creators to make longer, episodic work—new formats that don’t always translate to an email or short-form feed. The Ankler and others have reported that Substack has been courting video-first talent and that executives envision shows, series and live programming as next steps. That could be a creative win for audiences who want deep, hosted conversations and serialized reporting. Or it could nudge more creators to chase formats that perform on a For You feed rather than what reads best in subscribers’ inboxes.
There are analogies elsewhere in tech: streaming boxes, game-streaming peripherals and podcast players have all pushed how and where people consume content in ways that reshape producers’ incentives. Even gaming hardware and cloud streaming updates hint at the same trend: content follows screens, and creators follow attention. The recent improvements to console streaming and device experiences show how quickly consumption patterns can change, and Substack’s TV app plugs it into that broader shift—for better or worse. See how other platforms are rethinking living-room experiences in the PlayStation Portal streaming update that moved game libraries onto more screens (/news/playstation-portal-cloud-streaming-update).
Substack’s TV app is still a beta. That matters: features, rules and the product’s tone can evolve fast. Whether that evolution satisfies creators who came for longform prose—or whether it hastens a split between text-first and video-first publishers—remains very much an open question.
This launch feels less like a single product drop and more like a turning point: a test of how far a company built around email can stretch before it reshapes the community that made it. The next months should tell us whether Substack can put shows on the big screen without dimming the lights on the written word.