TikTok TV app to Shut Down on June 15, 2025

If you’ve been bingeing TikTok on your smart TV while comfortably sunk into your couch, we’ve got some bad news—you may want to grab your phone instead. TikTok is sending out notices to smart TV users letting them know that its TV app will be discontinued globally on June 15, 2025.

We got our hands on one of these notices (shoutout to a reader who sideloaded the app onto their Android 11 TV in Kenya—because of course Android users always find a way). The alert confirms that the TikTok TV service will be no more starting next month, though it reassures users that other TikTok apps will continue to work just fine. So, your phone obsession is safe—for now.

“From June 15, 2025, the TikTok TV service will no longer be available,” part of the in-app notification reads.

This isn’t just a random decision. According to an investigation by Axios in February 2025, TikTok had already been quietly yanked from smart TV platforms earlier this year—including Samsung, LG, Vizio, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, and Apple TV. That move came after the TikTok ban law kicked in on January 19, a policy push from the Trump administration that most tech companies didn’t wait around to challenge. Even though there was a 75-day grace period on enforcement, the biggest names in the streaming TV world were already playing it safe by cutting TikTok loose.

So, while most of the public’s attention was on what would happen to TikTok on mobile, the TV version had already been ghosted from app stores and smart TVs in the U.S. Earlier in 2021, TikTok TV had made a splashy entrance into living rooms in the UK, France and Germany via Google and Android TV OS, before expanding to the U.S. via Amazon Fire TV and later to other platforms and regions. The idea was simple: let people watch For You and Following feeds on their TVs without flipping their phones sideways.

But the latest development suggests the vertical video dream on the big screen is fading away.

For users in countries like Kenya where the app never officially launched, getting the app on your TV meant sideloading the APK. And as one of our reader’s experience shows, it worked perfectly… until now. Despite not being listed in Kenyan TV app stores, TikTok TV had become a hidden gem for savvy users who knew how to navigate Android’s loopholes. That’s coming to an end globally, regardless of how you got the app.

TikTok Shifts Focus to Healthier Habits

Interestingly, while TikTok is shutting down its TV ambitions, the company is doubling down on user wellbeing elsewhere. Just today, TikTok announced a $2.3 million mental health fund for Kenya, part of a broader initiative aimed at promoting healthier online behavior. The platform is also rolling out tools to nudge users off the app after long usage—because let’s face it, we’ve all blinked and realized we’ve spent an hour watching someone organize their fridge.

So what does all this mean?

TikTok is seemingly pulling back from passive, big-screen viewing in favor of reinforcing its core mobile experience—one that’s more interactive, personalized, and, at least in theory, more mindful. The company clearly wants to strike a balance between entertainment and responsibility, even if that means trimming down on where you can get your TikTok fix.

So, if you’re a fan of TikTok on your TV, now’s the time to make the most of it. Watch all the viral dances, cat clips, and oddly satisfying cleaning videos you can before June 15, 2025. After that, it’s back to the small screen.

Thanks for the tip, Matubia!