Cord cutting — cancelling a cable or satellite TV subscription in favour of streaming-only viewing — is a significant trend in the US and UK. In India, the picture is fundamentally different. Most Indian streaming viewers were never on cable in the way Western audiences were. Understanding this distinction matters for how planners think about CTV's role in India versus the role it plays in Western markets.
What cord cutting actually means
In the US, cord cutting means a household cancels its cable TV subscription (paying $80-150/month) and switches entirely to streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube TV). The cable industry has lost tens of millions of subscribers. US TV networks have lost rating share. Advertisers have followed audiences to streaming.
In India, the equivalent would be a household cancelling its DTH (Tata Sky, Airtel DTH, Dish TV) or cable subscription and watching only streaming platforms. This is happening, but at a much smaller scale and with different economics.
India's cord cutting reality
DTH subscriber base is under pressure
India's DTH sector has seen subscriber stagnation and churn in recent years. Tata Play (formerly Tata Sky), Airtel Digital TV, Dish TV, and Sun Direct collectively serve roughly 60-70 million DTH homes [NEEDS SOURCE — cite TRAI annual report for current DTH subscriber figures]. This number has not grown meaningfully in recent years as broadband penetration has improved and streaming alternatives have become affordable.
However, the subscribers leaving DTH are not all switching to streaming-only. Many are:
- Switching from DTH to cable (cheaper in some markets)
- Adding streaming as a supplement, not a replacement
- Households with second TVs or mobile-only viewers who were never the primary DTH subscriber
Cable TV is still large and fragmented
India's cable TV sector — served by thousands of local MSOs (multi-system operators) and LCOs (local cable operators) — reaches approximately 100 million homes [NEEDS SOURCE — TRAI data]. This is a fragmented, largely un-digitised market in many geographies. These households are not cord-cutting — they are paying for a cable bundle and watching Zee TV, Star Plus, and Sony at fixed monthly rates of Rs 200-400.
The cord-never majority
The more significant structural reality in India is the cord-never: households that have never had a cable or DTH subscription and have gone directly to smartphone-based streaming as their primary entertainment. This group is concentrated among:
- Young urban professionals who grew up with smartphones and use JioCinema and YouTube on mobile as their default entertainment
- Rural households that skipped the DTH era and now access entertainment through JioPhone or shared smartphone viewing
- Lower-income households for whom even a basic cable subscription is a discretionary expense
Cord-nevers matter for CTV planning because they are not reachable through linear TV buying — they simply do not watch broadcast or DTH. Reaching them requires digital/OTT channels. But reaching them on a TV screen (CTV) requires that they have a smart TV or streaming device, which is less common in lower-income cord-never households.
What this means for India TV advertisers
CTV is incremental reach, not replacement reach
Unlike in the US — where linear TV has meaningfully lost audience share to streaming and advertisers must follow — India's linear TV universe is still large and growing in viewership time. BARC India reports strong ratings for major Hindi GECs, news channels, and sports. The audiences watching Star Plus, Sony, and Zee are not primarily on streaming platforms instead — they are the same demographic that also uses mobile OTT.
India CTV advertising is therefore best framed as incremental reach on top of a linear TV plan, not as an audience migration story. You are not chasing audiences who left TV. You are adding reach among viewers who supplement TV with streaming, or who are young/urban/light-TV viewers underrepresented in the linear audience.
The frequency control case
One genuine cord-cutting effect in India: heavy JioCinema and Hotstar viewers who watch primarily through streaming are exposed to more digital-platform ads and fewer linear TV ads. For a brand running heavy linear TV, these viewers are being under-reached. CTV helps correct this — but frequency control across linear and CTV is not yet available in India without manual planning.
The sport exception
IPL on JioCinema free tier is the closest India has come to a cord-cutting-style audience shift. Many viewers who previously watched IPL on Star Sports (linear TV) shifted to JioCinema when it became free on streaming. This is not permanent cord cutting — they likely still watch other content on linear TV — but it established a habit of watching live sport on a streaming platform, including on connected TVs.
Will India see US-style cord cutting?
Not in the near term, and possibly not in the same form. The economics are different:
- Indian cable and DTH is cheap — Rs 200-500 per month for 300+ channels. US cable was $100+ per month for a bundle people wanted to escape.
- Indian broadband, while improving, is not uniformly available or stable enough for streaming-only households outside metros.
- Linear TV's content — particularly regional language GECs and live cricket — still drives habitual viewing that streaming cannot fully replicate without content exclusivity.
- The co-viewing culture: Indian households often watch TV together. Linear TV's shared schedule is a social format. On-demand streaming is more individual. Until streaming platforms solve the shared family viewing experience on CTV, linear TV retains its household role.
What is more likely: a gradual fragmentation of TV viewing time, with linear TV retaining share among older demographics and rural audiences while streaming takes an increasing share of young, urban, educated households. For planners, this means a multi-decade transition, not a cliff edge. Plan linear and CTV as complements for the foreseeable future.