Outdoors dwell sports activities, paid streaming platforms noticed development flatten as customers break up time between advertising-led OTT providers and free short-video ecosystems resembling YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. In keeping with Ormax Media, India’s OTT viewers universe reached 601.2 million in 2025, up 9.9% year-on-year, however slower than the 13% to 14% growth seen over the earlier two years.
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Advert house in print publications grew 3% per publication in Jan–Sep 2025 in contrast with the identical interval in 2024, displaying a optimistic pattern in print promoting, in accordance with TAM AdEx. Automobiles continued to be the highest class with a 9% share of advert house, whereas the highest 10 advertisers collectively contributed 13% of the whole advert house.
Tv promoting remained beneath strain. Broadcast Viewers Analysis Council knowledge confirmed a decline in total industrial time between September and November 2025, partly because of diminished FMCG spending, though classes resembling auto and retail displayed festive-season power.
WPP has forecast TV promoting income to dip 1.5% in 2025 to Rs 477.4 billion.
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A Crisil examine highlighted the continued churn within the non-public DTH consumer base, with prosperous viewers transferring to OTT and finances houses shifting to DD Free Dish; subscribers have declined from 72 million in FY19 to 62 million in FY24 and will fall beneath 51 million this fiscal.Viewing developments have been combined: whereas Hindi Films and Hindi Music genres recorded marginal erosion in share, regional tv strengthened, led by southern markets, whose total share rose to 46.3% from 44.9%.
IPL 2025 delivered one of many most-watched seasons with about one billion viewers and over 840 billion minutes of watch time, whereas the ICC Champions Trophy outperformed the 2023 ODI World Cup, recording round 250 billion viewing minutes.
Digital platforms continued to scale, however consumption turned extra fragmented. YouTube (532 million), Instagram (424 million), JioHotstar (405 million) and Fb (374 million) remained the highest 4 digital video platforms in India, with no different service crossing 200 million customers.
In the meantime, Linked TV adoption surged sharply, with the consumer base rising 85% from 69.7 million in 2024 to 129.2 million in 2025, signalling India’s evolution right into a two-device market reasonably than an completely smartphone-led one.
“Broadcast continues to be beneath stress due to altering shopper behaviour and broader macroeconomic pressures. That stated, linear TV nonetheless has headroom to develop since tv has not reached each family in India,” stated Aditya Pittie, Managing Director, The EPIC Firm.
He added that whereas streaming continues to develop, advertising-driven consumption is outpacing paid subscriptions. “SVOD development has slowed and stays largely pushed by cricket. AVOD will proceed to thrive as a result of there’s a massive viewers that prefers free content material. SVOD development, in distinction, will rely on financial growth, rising per capita earnings, and the way inclusive content material turns into.”
He additionally pointed to shifts in content material economics. “Premium and mass content material will survive, whereas mid-tier storytelling is getting squeezed. Brief movies and micro-dramas are rising quick, however provide nonetheless lags demand. Finally there could also be a correction. In the end, the long run belongs to robust IP that may journey throughout platforms.”
Analysts agree that whereas tv stays significant, worth creation will more and more be digital-led. “In India, linear tv continued to face structural headwinds in 2025. Nevertheless, it stays a sizeable and worthwhile enterprise and can proceed to play a significant position within the close to time period,” stated NV Capital Managing Accomplice Nitin Menon. “For sustained valuation development, broadcasters might want to deepen investments in streaming. Content material spending on linear TV might reasonable, however any discount shall be much less pronounced on digital.”
