India CTV programmatic buying has three main routes to market. (1) Agency trading desks: GroupM's Xaxis, Publicis Media's Performics, IPG's Kinesso, and Dentsu's Merkle all operate India trading desks that run CTV programmatic buying on behalf of their agency clients using DV360, The Trade Desk, or Amazon DSP. These desks have preferential access to publisher PMP deals, trained CTV specialists, and the buying scale to negotiate better floor prices. (2) Independent trading desks: A growing number of independent programmatic specialists in India (iProspect India, Hashtag Orange, and others) operate DSP seats and offer CTV programmatic buying as a managed service. They typically offer more transparent fees and DSP-neutral advice than agency holding company desks. (3) Publisher direct / managed service: JioCinema, JioHotstar, SonyLIV, and Zee5 all have direct sales teams offering managed campaign execution — you book with the publisher, provide creatives, and they run the campaign. This is the most common route for mid-market advertisers buying a single publisher.
For brands deciding which route to take: agency trading desks are appropriate for integrated campaign planning across TV, digital, and CTV; independent desks for programmatic-first multi-publisher CTV buys; publisher direct for tentpole content packages on a single platform. The trend in India is towards greater programmatic sophistication — more advertisers are moving from publisher-direct managed to programmatic PMP as DSP infrastructure improves.
Full guide
For a complete explanation, read: India CTV programmatic buying landscape: agency desks, independent desks, and publisher direct