Global CTV frameworks — the ones published by US trade bodies, APAC media agencies, and international DSP vendors — do not map cleanly onto India. The India CTV market has structural features that make it distinct from the US, UK, and even APAC peers like Australia and Japan. Planners and buyers who apply US or UK CTV playbooks to India directly will miscalibrate their approach. This article maps the key differences and what they mean in practice.
Market structure: walled gardens vs open ecosystems
US and UK: open programmatic is a real option
In the US, CTV advertising can be bought programmatically across a wide range of publishers through DSPs like The Trade Desk, DV360, and Amazon DSP. Roku, Samsung Ads, Vizio, and connected TV publishers like Peacock and Paramount+ have meaningful programmatic pipes. The open programmatic CTV market in the US is substantial enough that a buyer without direct relationships can still build a large-scale CTV campaign.
In the UK, a smaller market, Channel 4's All4, ITV's ITVX, and Sky's addressable TV infrastructure all have programmatic access, and the open market is usable at meaningful scale.
India: walled gardens dominate, open programmatic is limited
India's premium CTV inventory is controlled by three walled garden platforms — JioCinema, YouTube, and Hotstar — none of which offer full inventory access through open programmatic. JioCinema is almost entirely direct or PMP. Hotstar is primarily direct. YouTube is accessible via DV360 but as a walled garden (Google sets the rules). The remaining open programmatic CTV market — SonyLIV remnant, Zee5, MX Player — is real but small relative to the total addressable CTV audience.
The implication: a US-based trading desk that can build a full CTV campaign programmatically through The Trade Desk cannot replicate that model in India. India CTV requires direct relationships with JioCinema and Hotstar, plus a DV360 seat for YouTube. An Indian agency with platform relationships has a structural advantage over a global buyer relying purely on DSP access.
Content model: free AVOD dominates India; subscription anchors US/UK
In the US and UK, the premium CTV viewing experience has historically been subscription-first. Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, and HBO Max built CTV habits around paid subscription tiers. Ad-supported tiers (AVOD and FAST) are growing rapidly — Netflix and Disney+ launched ad tiers in 2022–23 — but the baseline expectation in the US was that premium CTV content required a subscription.
In India, the premium CTV content experience is free. JioCinema made IPL — the highest-viewed CTV content in India — free in 2023. JioCinema's general entertainment library is largely AVOD. Hotstar has a free AVOD tier alongside its paid tier. YouTube, which is entirely free, is one of the highest-reach CTV platforms in India.
This has two significant consequences:
- Wider addressable audience: Free content dramatically expands the number of households that can be reached on CTV. There is no subscription paywall limiting the addressable universe, which is why India's CTV audience figures are large relative to the subscription-based premium OTT subscriber count.
- Higher ad load tolerance: Free AVOD content in India carries higher ad loads than subscription content in the US. Viewers watching free cricket on JioCinema expect ads. The ad experience on India CTV is closer to linear TV (ads as the price of free content) than to US premium SVOD (ads as an intrusion).
Co-viewing: India is a household screen market
In the US and UK, CTV is increasingly used as a personal screen. Multi-TV households are common, and individuals watch their own content on their own screen. Co-viewing still exists — sports, family films — but the trend is toward individual-screen viewing behaviour on CTV.
In India, the TV screen remains the primary shared family entertainment device. Most Indian households have one TV. Watching on CTV is a household activity, not an individual one. Co-viewing multipliers of 2–4x are standard for sports and entertainment content. This means India CTV delivers household-level reach from individual device impressions — a structural difference from US/UK individual-centric CTV planning.
For advertisers: household-level targeting proxies (income, geography, content preference) are more relevant in India CTV than individual-level demographic targeting. Products with household purchase dynamics — auto, home appliances, insurance, FMCG — are well-matched to India CTV's viewing structure.
Measurement: India is significantly behind the US and UK
In the US, Nielsen, Comscore, iSpot, and VideoAmp all provide independent cross-platform CTV measurement with varying methodologies. The market has a measurement currency debate — multiple competing standards — but there is real independent data available. BARB in the UK provides cross-platform viewing measurement that includes streaming on TV screens.
In India, cross-platform CTV measurement does not exist in an independent, unified form. BARC India has extended some of its panel-based measurement to streaming but coverage is incomplete and not universally adopted. Each platform — JioCinema, Hotstar, YouTube — reports its own numbers using its own methodology. There is no Indian equivalent of a unified Nielsen or BARB measurement for CTV.
The practical gap this creates: Indian CTV buyers cannot validate cross-platform reach and frequency with the same confidence available in the US market. CPM comparisons across platforms use incompatible audience denominators. Attribution to offline outcomes is more difficult. This is improving — BARC India, third-party measurement vendors, and pressure from large advertisers are all pushing toward better standards — but the gap with the US remains significant.
Sports: India is a cricket monoculture, US is multi-sport
In the US, live sports viewing is distributed across multiple sports (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, college sports) across multiple streaming platforms (Peacock for NFL, ESPN+ for various sports, Amazon for Thursday Night Football). No single event dominates the CTV advertising calendar the way IPL dominates India's.
In India, IPL concentrates CTV viewing and advertising demand into a 7–8 week window in a way that has no US equivalent. IPL is approximately 60 matches over a single season. The NFL season is 272 games. India CTV has one dominant event that sets the CPM ceiling for the year; the US has a more distributed sports calendar.
This creates a different planning dynamic: India CTV campaigns need to make a binary decision about IPL (in or out) that shapes the whole year's CTV approach. US CTV planning can spread sports investment across multiple properties and seasons more evenly.
APAC comparisons: Australia and Japan
Australia has a more developed open programmatic CTV market than India, with free-to-air broadcasters (Nine, Seven, Ten) having strong BVOD (broadcaster video on demand) platforms with programmatic CTV access. The Australian CTV market is closer to the UK model — significant broadcast-backed CTV inventory available programmatically.
Japan has a high smart TV penetration and a strong linear-to-CTV transition, but the advertising market remains relationship-driven, similar to India. Programmatic CTV access in Japan is more limited than in the US or Australia.
India's closest structural parallel in APAC is Indonesia — large population, mobile-first baseline, dominant local platforms (Vidio in Indonesia, JioCinema in India), limited open programmatic, and fast-growing smart TV base. Both markets reward local platform relationships over pure DSP-driven buying.
Summary: what global CTV frameworks miss about India
- Open programmatic is not the primary buying route. Direct and PMP relationships with JioCinema and Hotstar are essential. A DSP-only India CTV strategy misses most of the premium audience.
- Free AVOD, not subscription, is the dominant content model. India CTV is structurally closer to linear TV economics — ad-funded, free to watch — than to US subscription-first streaming.
- Co-viewing changes the reach and frequency maths. Household-level thinking applies. Individual-level targeting precision is lower than US CTV.
- Measurement gaps are larger. Accept that cross-platform reach cannot be deduped. Plan for uncertainty in reach figures. Use platform-reported data directionally.
- IPL is a market-defining event with no global equivalent. It sets the annual CPM ceiling and concentrates buying demand in a way that requires explicit planning around — either commit to IPL early or avoid the window entirely.