The CTV advertising ecosystem has at least eight distinct roles between an advertiser's budget and a viewer's television screen. Each role is performed by a different company, each charges fees, and each can cause a campaign to succeed or fail. Understanding who does what in India's ecosystem is the foundation for buying or selling CTV effectively.
Buy-side roles
Advertiser: The brand paying for the campaign. Sets the brief, approves the budget, owns the creative, and defines the KPIs. In India, advertisers range from national FMCG brands to D2C startups.
Media agency: Plans and executes the media buy. In India, the largest are GroupM (Mindshare, Wavemaker, EssenceMediacom), Publicis Groupe (Starcom, Zenith), and IPG Mediabrands. Agencies access CTV via DSPs, direct publisher deals, or managed service.
Demand-Side Platform (DSP): The technology platform the agency uses to bid for CTV inventory programmatically via OpenRTB. In India, DV360 and The Trade Desk are the primary CTV DSPs, charging 5–15% of media spend as platform fees.
Sell-side roles
Publisher: The streaming platform that owns the content and ad inventory. In India: JioHotstar, Zee5, SonyLIV, MX Player, Samsung TV Plus. Publishers set ad policies and determine what share of inventory is programmatic vs direct.
Supply-Side Platform (SSP): The technology platform publishers use to connect CTV inventory to multiple DSPs simultaneously. When a viewer reaches an ad break, the SSP sends a bid request to connected DSPs. In India, PubMatic, Magnite, and Google Ad Manager are the primary CTV SSPs.
Publisher ad server: Manages the entire ad break — decides which demand source fills each slot, enforces competitive separation, and fires impression trackers. Google Ad Manager dominates CTV ad serving in India. JioHotstar runs a proprietary ad server.
Infrastructure and measurement roles
Ad verification vendor: Third-party platforms that verify delivery to real devices, track completion rates, and provide attribution data. In India: DoubleVerify, IAS, AppsFlyer, Adjust. These integrate via VAST tracking pixels alongside the creative.
India ecosystem map
| Role | India players | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher | JioHotstar, Zee5, SonyLIV, MX Player | JioHotstar ~40–50% of streaming ad spend |
| DSP | DV360, The Trade Desk, Amazon DSP | DV360 dominant for CTV |
| SSP | PubMatic, Magnite, Google Ad Manager | Most India CTV is PMP or direct, not open exchange |
| Ad server | Google Ad Manager, proprietary (JioHotstar) | GAM dominates non-JioHotstar publishers |
| Measurement | DoubleVerify, IAS, AppsFlyer, BARC | BARC OTT is monthly; MMP data is daily |
How roles connect in a live India CTV campaign
A single 30-second impression on JioHotstar involves: the advertiser briefing the agency → agency setting up a PMP deal in DV360 → JioHotstar's ad server sending a bid request when a viewer reaches a break → DV360 bidding → JioHotstar selecting the winner → the VAST tag retrieving the creative from CDN → the ad playing → completion beacons firing to DV360 and a verification vendor → data aggregating in reporting the next morning.
Each handoff is a potential failure point. Understanding which role owns which step is the prerequisite for diagnosing delivery problems and building a CTV stack that performs reliably in India's network conditions.