For decades, television advertising in India worked on a fairly simple premise. Viewers switched on the TV, families gathered around popular shows and brands followed. But as Tata Play's latest financial results show, that equation is becoming increasingly complicated.
India's largest DTH operator reported a loss of ₹551 crore in FY26, while revenue declined 13.5%. The broader pay-TV market is also shrinking, with subscriber numbers falling from 62 million two years ago to 51 million by the end of 2025. Viewers are steadily migrating towards streaming platforms, connected TVs and free television services such as DD Free Dish.
Yet, television continues to attract significant advertising investments.
This raises an important question for marketers: when traditional TV distribution is no longer the default way people consume content, what happens to TV advertising? Are brands moving budgets wholesale to OTT and Connected TV, or are they simply following audiences wherever they happen to be watching?
Harmeet Singh, Chief Brand Officer, The Body Shop Asia South, says the company has consciously moved away from traditional marketing over the past year as consumer behaviour continues to evolve.
"Digital platforms are increasingly serving us both as engagement and commerce channels," she says.
For Singh, digital's value extends beyond advertising. It offers a direct line into what consumers are thinking, discussing and expecting from the brand. Comments on influencer content, conversations across social platforms and online engagement have become valuable feedback loops that help shape both marketing and business decisions.
As a result, The Body Shop's investments are increasingly focused on digital platforms. From Instagram and YouTube to Spotify, marketplaces and quick commerce channels, the brand is trying to meet consumers wherever they spend their time online. "YouTube is another big focus for us because a lot of the younger generation is consuming YouTube content, whether that's Shorts or long-form content," Singh notes. But while digital is commanding greater attention and investment, marketers are not writing off television just yet.
For brands that need scale, TV still plays a critical role.
Kunal Sharma, Vice President, Marketing and Organised Trade at KRBL, says there has undoubtedly been a shift in media consumption, even in a category as traditional as rice. "There's been a shift. There's no denying it," he says. However, Sharma believes the discussion should not be framed as television versus digital. Instead, brands need to view the media landscape as one connected ecosystem.
Television continues to deliver what it always has: reach and frequency. Digital, on the other hand, is increasingly responsible for driving engagement, conversations and social buzz.
"We still continue to maintain our objective of weeks on air by market through television," Sharma explains. Television remains KRBL's baseline for achieving scale, while digital investments are layered on top to deepen engagement. For him, TV remains difficult to replace when brands need to reach large audiences consistently. "TV is there to stay," he says.
The industry's broader challenge is that audiences are no longer concentrated in one place. Consumers might watch a cricket match on television, binge a series on a streaming platform and scroll through video content on social media, all within the same day.
As viewing habits fragment, advertisers are being forced to rethink the way they approach video advertising altogether. According to Sanchari Chakrabarty, National Head of Strategy at 22feet, the conversation goes far beyond simply shifting budgets from one screen to another. "Simply viewing CTV or OTT as screens will not do justice to their possibilities," she says.
Traditional television was built around appointment viewing. Audiences browsed channels and advertisers selected placements based on genre preferences, language choices and demographic profiles. Connected TV and OTT platforms work differently.
"The strategy shifts from consumer affinities linked to channels versus viewing behaviour linked to genres or specific content pieces," Chakrabarty explains. In other words, brands are increasingly looking at how people consume content rather than where they consume it. The focus is moving from channel selection to behavioural understanding. That shift is also changing the way media plans are built.
Rajiv Rajagopal, Head of Advanced TV at WPP Media India, says advertisers are moving away from channel-first planning and towards audience-first planning. "Consumers today move seamlessly across linear TV, CTV, OTT, mobile and social platforms, so brands can no longer plan in silos," he says.
Linear television continues to provide scale, while CTV and OTT help advertisers reach incremental audiences, manage frequency and improve targeting. Rather than treating every platform separately, marketers are increasingly trying to create one connected video strategy.
The logic is simple. "Consumers don't think in terms of platforms; they simply consume content," Rajagopal says. That idea is perhaps the biggest shift taking place in advertising today. For years, media buying revolved around purchasing inventory on specific channels. Increasingly, brands are buying audiences instead.
The objective is not necessarily to appear on a particular screen. It is to appear wherever the intended audience is spending time. But while fragmentation offers greater precision, it also creates new challenges. Measurement remains one of the industry's biggest concerns. Chakrabarty points out that while most OTT platforms offer measurement systems, the depth and consistency of available data varies significantly.
"The question we need to answer is whether we know enough about each platform to decode measurement metrics and ask for depth," she says. Unlike traditional television, which has long relied on established audience measurement systems, OTT platforms often operate within their own reporting frameworks. The absence of an independent cross-platform measurement standard makes it harder for advertisers to understand exactly how campaigns are performing across screens.
Rajagopal believes the industry also needs to rethink the metrics it prioritises. "The biggest challenge is moving from measuring exposure to measuring influence," he says. Too often, advertisers celebrate impressions, views and completion rates without understanding whether those metrics are translating into meaningful business outcomes.
For Rajagopal, three measures matter most: incremental reach, attention and business impact. The real questions are whether brands are reaching new audiences, whether those audiences are paying attention and whether campaigns are ultimately driving sales, brand lift or store visits.
As audiences continue to spread across multiple platforms, those answers will become increasingly important. Tata Play's losses may reflect the challenges facing traditional television distribution, but they do not signal the end of video advertising. If anything, they underline how dramatically viewing behaviour is changing.
The living room is still where much of India's video consumption happens. The difference is that audiences are no longer confined to a single screen. For advertisers, the future may not be about choosing between television and digital. It may be about understanding how the two work together. Because while TV audiences are fragmenting, living-room audiences are very much alive. And increasingly, that's who brands are trying to reach.
