Connected TV (CTV) Advertising in India
Connected TV (CTV): The Complete Marketer's Guide
Why the big screen is no longer optional in your media plan — and how to actually plan for it.
India's television habits have quietly flipped. The living room hasn't changed — families still gather around the big screen every evening — but what that screen is has changed. It's increasingly a Connected TV (CTV), not a cable box.
According to a joint 2026 study by WPP Media, The Trade Desk, and Ormax Media, CTV now reaches 207 million viewers across 62–65 million households in India, marking 3X growth since 2022. This isn't a metro-only or premium-only trend anymore — it's becoming mainstream. Here's what marketers, agencies, and Kerala-based brands need to know before planning their next CTV campaign.
What Is CTV, and How Is It Different From OTT and Linear TV?
Before diving into numbers, a quick clarification since these terms get used loosely:
- Linear TV — traditional cable, satellite, or DTH viewing.
- OTT — any digital video streamed on any device (mobile, desktop, or TV).
- CTV — a subset of OTT, specifically streaming content watched on a television set through the internet, where ads can be served with the same precision as digital.
CTV essentially merges the scale and shared-viewing power of traditional TV with the targeting and measurability of digital advertising.
India's CTV Ecosystem: The Core Numbers
| Metric | 2026 Figure |
|---|---|
| CTV households | 62–65 million |
| CTV viewers | 207 million |
| Growth since 2022 | 3X |
| Average daily watch time | 2.9 hours |
Growth is no longer concentrated in big cities. Rural CTV audiences have doubled in just 12 months, and the growth-by-market breakdown tells the real story:
| Market Tier | YoY Growth |
|---|---|
| Metro | +21% |
| Mini-metros | +46% |
| Small towns | +55% |
| Rural | +110% |
Kerala note: Along with Bihar-Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and parts of the northeast, Kerala was flagged as one of the markets with above-average CTV growth this year — relevant context for any brand still treating CTV as a metro-first channel here.
82% of viewers access CTV through apps built into their smart TVs rather than an external streaming device, which makes the smart-TV operating system (Samsung, LG, Xiaomi, Sony, TCL) an increasingly important ad surface in its own right.
Who's Actually Watching? The NCCS Breakdown
One of the more useful findings for planners: CTV delivers both scale and affluence at the same time.
| NCCS Segment | Share of CTV Universe |
|---|---|
| NCCS A (A1 + A2A3) | 44% |
| NCCS B | 30% |
| NCCS C/D/E | 26% |
More than two-thirds of urban NCCS A households already have CTV, so most of the future growth is expected to come from NCCS B and below, plus non-metro India.
When India Watches: Prime Time Has Moved to CTV
CTV viewership tracks closely with traditional TV prime time but consistently runs higher:
- Weekday, 8–10 PM: 78% of CTV viewers active vs. 63% on linear TV
- Weekend, 8–10 PM: 73% CTV vs. 61% linear TV
- Weekend late night (10 PM–midnight): CTV viewership stays dominant at 61%, a high-attention, low-clutter window many advertisers still under-buy
The Household Reach Multiplier: One Impression, 2.5 Viewers
This is arguably the most important planning insight in the whole report. CTV is a shared-screen medium — over 80% of viewing happens with family or friends. With an average household size of 3.3 people, a single ad impression actually reaches about 2.5 people, not one.
What this means for planning: impression counts borrowed from mobile or desktop logic will understate CTV's real delivery. Reach, frequency, and attribution all need to be recalculated at the household level, not the individual-cookie level.
CTV Ads Drive Action — Not Just Awareness
| Audience | Seek more info after seeing a CTV ad. |
|---|---|
| All CTV viewers | 83% |
| Premium (NCCS A) viewers | 89% |
The practical takeaway: make sure your search and AI-search presence is ready to catch that curiosity, since a large share of the post-ad journey routes straight into search.
What India Actually Watches on CTV
| Content Format | Reach |
|---|---|
| Web series | 69% |
| Cricket | 64% |
| Theatrical films | 63% |
| Direct-to-OTT films | 59% |
| News | 47% |
Language is no longer a barrier either — 63% choose Hindi and 40% watch in English, but multilingual, subtitled, and dubbed viewing has become the norm, which widens addressable reach for regional-language and international content alike.
CTV's High-Value Audience Segments
| Segment | Key Trait | Daily CTV Time |
|---|---|---|
| Premium (top 15%) | 89% act on ads; over-indexed on finance, travel, and quick commerce | ~3 hrs |
| Gen Z (15–29, 49% of audience) | 77% co-view; big-screen use is still growing. | 3.1 hrs |
| Millennials (38% of audience) | Most ad-responsive, best home connectivity | 2.8 hrs |
| Mothers (20% of audience) | 89% of sessions are co-viewed; reaches decision-maker + household together | 2.9 hrs |
| Cord-cutters / light linear | 54% of homes; unreachable via linear TV at any weight | — |
How Marketers Should Actually Plan for CTV
- Count reach at the household level, not per impression. Apply the ~2.5x co-viewing multiplier, or your CTV numbers will look smaller than they really are.
- Plan Total TV, not CTV vs. linear. 68% of CTV households still watch some linear TV — treat CTV as complementary reach, not a replacement, unless you're targeting cord-cutters specifically.
- Use CTV as the base plan for premium/NCCS A audiences. Only 40% of NCCS A CTV homes watch linear regularly, so CTV should carry primary weight here, with linear used for incremental reach.
- Design CTV-only plans for cord-cutters. 32% of the CTV universe are cord-cutters or cord-nevers — completely unreachable through traditional TV.
- Don't stop at 8–10 PM. Late-night and weekend slots are high-attention and currently under-bought.
- Go hyperlocal where relevant. CTV targeting can go down to the pin-code level, which is useful for store launches, catchment-area promotions, and regional stock/inventory pushes.
FAQs
How many CTV viewers does India have in 2026?
207 million viewers across 62–65 million households, per the WPP Media–Trade Desk–Ormax Media study.
Is CTV growth still a metro phenomenon?
No. Rural CTV audiences doubled in the past year, and rural, small-town, and mini-metro markets are now growing faster than metros.
Does CTV replace linear TV in media planning?
Mostly no — 68% of CTV households still watch some linear TV. The exception is the roughly one-third of CTV homes that are cord-cutters or never had a linear connection; for them, CTV is the only way in.
What content works best for CTV advertising in India?
Long-form, big-screen formats — web series, cricket, and theatrical films — draw the largest and most engaged audiences.
How to Scale CTV Advertising: The Tools You Actually Need
Getting a CTV campaign live is easy. Scaling it — across households, dayparts, geographies, and measurement — needs a proper stack. Here's what that stack typically looks like:
| Function | What It Does | Example Tools |
|---|---|---|
| Demand-side platform (DSP) | Buys CTV inventory programmatically across apps and publishers | The Trade Desk, Google DV360, Amazon DSP |
| OEM/platform-direct inventory | Buys directly on the smart-TV OS layer, where 82% of viewing happens | Samsung Ads, LG Ads, VIZIO, JioHotstar/JioStar direct |
| Identity/household graph | Maps which devices and impressions belong to the same home — needed to apply the 2.5x co-viewing multiplier and control frequency | DSP-native identity graphs, LiveRamp, deterministic CRM matching |
| Server-side tracking & measurement | Connects ad exposure to outcomes (site visits, leads, sales) since CTV has no cookies or click-through | GTM server-side, Meta CAPI, GA4, brand-lift studies |
| Geo/pin-code targeting layer | Enables hyperlocal CTV buys down to catchment areas for store launches | DSP geo-targeting modules, pin-code audience segments |
| Creative/format tooling | Builds shoppable, interactive, and QR-driven CTV creative to close the loop from ad to action | Dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) tools, QR-linked landing pages |
Scaling checklist, in order:
- Start with a DSP that gives access to both open-internet CTV inventory and major Indian OTT/FAST supply.
- Layer in an identity graph before you scale spend — without it you're both over-counting reach and under-controlling frequency across the same household.
- Set up server-side conversion tracking (GTM/CAPI) early so in-flight optimisation is possible from week one, not after the campaign ends.
- Once national reach is stable, add pin-code/geo targeting for regional pushes — this is where Kerala-specific or city-specific campaigns get efficient.
- Only then invest in shoppable/interactive creative—it's the layer that converts CTV's high post-ad search intent (83–89%) into a measurable action.
The Bottom Line
CTV in India has moved past the "should we test this" stage. With national scale, premium-audience concentration, high co-viewing, and strong post-ad response rates, the real question for 2026 is no longer whether to include CTV in the media plan — it's how much weight to give it and how to plan it properly against linear, digital, and regional targets.
Source: "The Connected TV Era: India's New Prime Time" — WPP Media & The Trade Desk, in partnership with Ormax Media (2026 edition). Data based on a study of 3,000 urban CTV viewers (May–June 2026) combined with the Ormax OTT Audience Report 2026 (12,000+ respondents, urban and rural India).
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