Q: What VCR should I expect for India CTV campaigns?

India CTV video completion rates by context: Pre-roll non-skippable on premium OTT (JioHotstar, Zee5): 85–92%. Mid-roll non-skippable: 78–88%. Open exchange programmatic CTV: 70–82%. FAST channel inventory: 72–85%. Live sports (cricket): 80–88% (some viewers drop at ad break). These ranges are from 2025 industry benchmarks. Completion rates are higher on CTV than on mobile (where mobile video averages 55–65% VCR) because TV viewing is lean-back and non-skippable formats are standard. If your India CTV campaign VCR is below 70%, investigate for IVT, low-quality inventory mix, or creative length mismatch (60s creative in 30s slot).

Question 1

Is viewability measured on CTV in India?

Accepted Answer

Traditional MRC viewability (50% of pixels in view for 2 seconds) is not applied to CTV in India. CTV ads play full-screen on a TV that is on and in use — the traditional viewability question (is the ad visible on screen?) does not translate to the CTV context.

Instead, India CTV campaigns use video completion rate (VCR) — the percentage of ad impressions watched to completion — as the primary quality metric. A VCR of 75–85% is typical for India CTV; premium content environments (sports, originals) achieve 85–92%. IAS and DoubleVerify offer CTV-specific quality metrics focused on invalid traffic (IVT) detection and app verification rather than viewability.

Question 2

What quality metrics replace viewability in India CTV?

Accepted Answer

Three metrics replace viewability for India CTV quality assessment:

Video completion rate (VCR): Percentage of ads watched to 100%. The primary quality signal for CTV.
Invalid traffic rate (IVT): Percentage of impressions flagged as fraudulent. India CTV's primary IVT vector is app spoofing — fraudulent apps impersonating legitimate OTT bundles in programmatic bid requests.
App verification: Confirming the impression served in the declared app (JioHotstar, Zee5) and not a spoofed bundle.

IAS and DoubleVerify provide IVT and app verification for India CTV, though coverage is partial compared to Western markets. Publishers offering third-party verified IVT reporting command premium CPMs.

Question 3

What VCR should I expect for India CTV campaigns?

Accepted Answer

India CTV video completion rates by context (2025 benchmarks):

Pre-roll non-skippable on premium OTT (JioHotstar, Zee5): 85–92%
Mid-roll non-skippable: 78–88%
Open exchange programmatic CTV: 70–82%
FAST channel inventory: 72–85%
Live sports (cricket): 80–88%

CTV completion rates are higher than mobile (where mobile video averages 55–65%) because TV viewing is lean-back and non-skippable formats are standard. If your India CTV VCR is below 70%, investigate for IVT, low-quality inventory mix, or creative length mismatch (60s creative in a 30s slot).