Vimeo is tuning out its streaming TV apps

First the bad news: Vimeo, the web video-hosting company and one-time YouTube competitor, is doing away with its streaming TV apps.

The good news: There’s still an easy way to watch Vimeo videos on your TV.

As spotted by Variety, Vimeo posted a notice on its website announcing that as of June 27, the company will deep-six its streaming video apps for Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Roku.

That said, there is still a way to stream Vimeo videos on a bigger screen. The Vimeo mobile app supports both Apple AirPlay 2 and Google Chromecast, which means Apple TV, Android TV, Google TV, and Roku users can easily stream Vimeo videos to their sets via the app (or, in the case of Chromecast, via a web browser).

Amazon’s Fire TV players don’t directly support AirPlay 2 or Chromecast, but there are workarounds for Chromecast users.

In its announcement, Vimeo said that it “occasionally…retire[s] legacy products and features that are no longer consistent with our standards,” adding that “users looking to view Vimeo videos will receive a better ongoing experience by casting via our mobile app.”

While Vimeo’s consumer-facing streaming apps are going away, its branded streaming apps for enterprise users aren’t going anywhere, the company notes.

Vimeo’s decision to nix its streaming TV apps might be disappointing for those who used them regularly, but it’s not entirely unexpected.

Vimeo first launched its Apple TV, Android TV, and Roku apps back in 2016, when it was still positioning itself as a destination site for streaming video and a viable YouTube competitor.

The following year, however, Vimeo “made a major strategic shift,” pivoting away from being a streaming video destination site and focusing more on providing video-streaming services to businesses, as Digiday detailed in a 2019 profile.