Are CTV home screens India’s new premium ad real estate?

Connected TV has quietly created one of the most premium front door ad surfaces in India: the home screen, or what industry experts often call the CTV Masthead. 

As Smart TVs replace set top boxes in high income households, brands are beginning to view this screen, the very first interface users see when they switch on their television, as the next big digital billboard inside the living room. 

Prices today reflect that status. CTV home screen takeovers range from about Rs 12 lakh to Rs 30 lakh for a single day, and CPMs generally hover between Rs 300 and Rs 500. The result is a growing belief within the advertising and streaming ecosystem that CTV is no longer just a pipe for OTT viewing but a monetizable discovery engine that sits at the top of the user journey.

What is being sold on CTV: not landing pages, but Mastheads

According to Rajiv Dubey, VP & Head - Media, Dabur India Ltd, CTV mastheads and linear landing pages deliver impact in very different ways.

“On linear TV, you get massive reach and a strong top of funnel push. On CTV, the masthead gives precision. So the ROI framework shifts from just ‘reach’ to reach plus attention plus action. That’s why brands often see more efficient ROI on CTV, especially for high intent, urban and younger audiences. There is a cost difference, but it’s more about value than headline price,” Dubey said.

While linear TV landing pages let the channel play automatically, CTV surfaces require the viewer to engage first, either by clicking or navigating to an app or link. That difference makes the home screen more of an interactive storefront than a passive channel feed.

Prabhvir Sahmey, founder of StratPulse Techlabs, explained that the idea of landing pages technically does not exist in CTV. Instead, it is the home screen that is monetised. He said that the Masthead or home page unit is paid for by whoever is buying it, whether it is the brand, the agency or even an app owner promoting its own service. The purchase unit can be a CPM based buy or a full day roadblock, he said, adding that prices typically start at Rs 12 lakh a day and climb to Rs 30 lakh depending on the platform.

On other digital platforms like YouTube, its homepage masthead in India can cost anywhere between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore+ for a day, especially during peak demand periods. Historically, YouTube sold mastheads on a flat-rate daily model, though many buyers have now shifted to programmatic bidding where CPMs can vary widely between Rs 300 and Rs 1,200, depending on factors like audience targeting, time of day and auction competition.

Who sells CTV home screen inventory

To understand how selling works in this ecosystem, industry experts said that the seller today may be the operating system, the hardware manufacturer or both. Samsung, for instance, controls both layers. But on Android based televisions the hardware belongs to the set top box or TV maker, while the operating system could be controlled by Google. Buyers therefore pay whichever entity is responsible for commercialising the home screen. In India, the dominant seller for set top box driven CTV devices is the one that controls both hardware and the OS layer.

How CTV economics diverge from linear landing pages

This emerging market sits in sharp contrast to the long established economics of landing pages on linear TV. A senior industry expert said that for about 5 million subscribers, landing page slots cost between Rs 25 crore and Rs 30 crore annually, adding that these default channel placements are crucial revenue generators for cable operators, contributing close to 20 per cent of their total income. Another TV network executive explained that broadcasters collectively spend nearly Rs 250 crore each year to secure these slots because they guarantee wide distribution and push top of funnel viewership for new shows or big premieres.

Functionally too the two mediums operate very differently. On linear TV the landing page is simply the default channel that appears when the viewer switches on the television. It plays whatever content is scheduled, without the viewer needing to take any action. CTV, however, places the Masthead on the home screen, where it sits as the lead creative within the content carousel. When a user focuses on it the Masthead expands in size and, if left idle, transitions into a fullscreen autoplay video with audio. It lasts for up to thirty seconds before requiring the viewer to engage again.

A digital advertising expert said this design has turned the CTV home screen into one of the most impactful yet accountable ad units in the ecosystem, especially because the viewer is already leaning forward to choose something to watch.

Measurement, ROI and campaign agility

Measurement deepens this divide. Linear TV relies on BARC ratings which provide household level data and limited behavioural granularity. CTV, on the other hand, offers impressions, clicks, view through rates, user acquisition data and even device specific signals including city, state or television size. This allows advertisers to build more precise audience insights and optimise creative deployment. Campaign agility is also radically different. While linear landing page activations may require a week or more of coordination because they are tied to the broadcast schedule, CTV creatives can be deployed or changed within hours.

According to Anil Solanki, Senior Director, DentsuX, “On CTV, landing page placements are typically paid for by brands, though broadcasters also use them strategically during big releases.” He added that the real advantage is accountability. Advertisers get premium front door visibility along with trackable impressions and actions, making ROI clearer than traditional linear landing page pushes.

Linear landing pages reach every cable and DTH connected household, delivering mass exposure at scale. CTV home screens operate within a more premium but smaller universe consisting only of connected TV devices and specific apps on those platforms. This universe is expanding rapidly but still lags far behind linear television’s national footprint. Creatively too the levels of personalisation vary. Linear creatives remain fixed because they are part of a channel feed. CTV creatives can be dynamic and tailored by region or audience behaviour, giving advertisers more control over messaging.

As CTV adoption grows across metropolitan and affluent households, India’s television landscape appears to be undergoing a rebalancing in how attention, discovery and advertising value are distributed. What the landing page has been to cable operators for the past decade, the Masthead is now becoming connected television. And with brands already paying up to Rs 30 lakh a day for dominance, the home screen may well be on its way to becoming India’s next marquee advertising property.