CTV's premium problem: Who decides what makes an impression valuable?

With advertising investment accelerating and more players competing for budgets, the definition of premium is becoming an increasingly important commercial consideration

by Shantanu David
Published: Nov 5, 2026 9:40 AM | 5 min read

India's connected television audience grew to 206.9 million in 2026, a 60% increase from 2025, while the broader OTT audience rose by 11% to 664.9 million, highlighting a significant expansion in the advertising market.
The definition of "premium" advertising inventory remains ambiguous, with various stakeholders applying different criteria such as screen size, content quality, and audience demographics, complicating standardization in the industry.
A survey indicated that 63% of marketers plan to increase their CTV budgets, driven by advanced targeting and audience segmentation, yet there is no consensus on what constitutes premium inventory.
As CTV becomes more prevalent, advertisers are increasingly reallocating budgets from traditional media to CTV, with some reporting CPMs up to 20% higher during the festive season, reflecting a shift towards differentiated inventory and advertising strategies.

As India's connected television audience expands beyond affluent metropolitan households, the advertising industry faces a question about the inventory it increasingly markets as premium. Is the distinction determined by screen size, content, audience demographics, placement exclusivity or measurable outcomes?

According to the Ormax OTT Audience Report 2026, India's connected television audience reached 206.9 million, growing 60% from 129.2 million in 2025. The broader OTT audience grew a comparatively modest 11% to 664.9 million. Free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) also emerged as a significant segment, with an estimated 35.2 million viewers.

Read: Premium CTV rates estimated to rise 15–30% this festive season

YouTube wants a share of India's shopping carts. Will ad budgets follow?

The expansion is creating a larger advertising market, but also a more differentiated one. Home-screen placements, premium streaming content and programmatic inventory are increasingly sold on different propositions, raising questions about how advertisers compare their value.

The investment intentions are substantial. The ad:tech–Tyroo Drivers of Growth 2026 survey found that 63% of participating marketers planned to increase CTV budgets, compared with 43% in the previous year's survey. Advanced targeting and audience segmentation were cited by 55% of respondents as drivers of CTV investment, while 27% identified programmatic buying and access to premium inventory.

Yet there is little consensus on what premium actually means.

"Premium is, in itself, a debatable term, because the real question is: premium according to whom?" says Somendu Singh, Chief Contributor, CTV Scale.

Singh argues that different stakeholders apply different definitions, with the absence of widely available content-level measurement data complicating the development of common standards.

He suggests that premium inventory can be classified through parameters including screen size, content identification, resolution, language and geography. A large television displaying high-definition English-language content in a metropolitan market, for instance, can be positioned differently from standard video inventory.

Read: This festive season, brands are approving systems, not just ads

These characteristics can help advertisers distinguish between viewing environments. However, they are not necessarily equivalent to household affluence, purchase intent or advertising effectiveness.

The television hardware market itself illustrates this differentiation. Counterpoint Research reported that Indian smart-TV shipments declined 3% year-on-year during the first quarter of 2026, even as televisions measuring 55 inches and above accounted for nearly one-third of shipments. Growth in larger screens is creating opportunities for high-impact advertising formats, although device specifications alone cannot establish the commercial value of an audience.

For Abhijeet Rajpurohit, COO and Co-founder, CloudTV, the proposition extends beyond the characteristics of the device.

"Inventory earns the premium when it delivers both things together: TV-grade attention with digital-grade accountability," he says.

Rajpurohit identifies measurability and impact as the medium's principal advantages. Unlike conventional television advertising, CTV enables delivery tracking, completion rates, frequency controls and connections between exposure and subsequent actions, including searches and app installations.

He also emphasises the value of the television home screen, which advertisers can occupy before viewers select an application or programme. This provides a different advertising environment from in-stream video, where placements compete within content.

CloudTV argues that such opportunities justify additional expenditure through greater visibility, brand-building impact and potential downstream engagement. However, its response does not provide comparative campaign-level results establishing the size of that advantage.

The question becomes more complicated when examined from the advertiser's perspective.

Rajeev Jain, Senior Vice President, Corporate Marketing, DS Group, identified socioeconomic targeting as an important consideration in CTV planning.

"NCCS A and B+ audiences, who are key to our growth, are moving heavily to streaming platforms, and also to e-commerce and quick commerce, where purchase intent is high during festivals," he said.

For a diversified advertiser, the value of CTV therefore depends on reaching commercially relevant households, rather than merely accessing inventory designated as premium.

Sooraj Balakrishnan, Head of Marketing, Acer India, similarly highlighted the use of audience and purchase-intent signals to identify consumers considering products such as laptops, televisions and air conditioners. Programme selection and frequency management also influence the company's CTV planning.

These buying considerations suggest that the value of inventory may vary considerably between advertisers, even when the underlying placement is identical.

The movement of budgets provides another indication of CTV's changing position.

The ad:tech–Tyroo survey found that 57% of respondents identified existing digital video budgets as a source of CTV investment, compared with 15% citing general advertising budgets and 13% citing linear television. These figures represent reported funding sources, not the proportion of total advertising expenditure transferred.

Varun Mohan, Chief Commercial Officer, MiQ, separately observes that some advertisers are reallocating 10–20% of their linear television expenditure towards CTV.

Mohan also reports that festive CTV CPMs were up to 20% higher than pre-season levels but slightly below those of festive 2025, suggesting that seasonal demand and longer-term pricing movements need not follow the same trajectory.

The expanding market is therefore not uniformly becoming more expensive. Instead, advertisers are being offered increasingly differentiated inventory, with value propositions ranging from audience characteristics and content quality to exclusivity, attention and measurement.

As CTV reaches more Indian households, the distinction between mainstream reach and premium advertising opportunities may become sharper.

The commercial challenge will be establishing which characteristics genuinely make an impression more valuable, and whether those distinctions can be consistently understood by the advertisers buying them.