India's OTT Audience Is Moving to TV
India’s streaming story has largely been written around one screen.
The smartphone.
Cheap mobile data, affordable Android devices and massive internet adoption helped turn video streaming into an everyday behaviour for hundreds of millions of Indians.
But the next phase of India’s OTT market is increasingly happening on a much bigger screen.
According to the newly released Ormax OTT Audience Report 2026, India’s Connected TV audience has reached 206.9 million people, compared with 129.2 million in 2025.
That is 60% growth in a single year.
For comparison, India’s overall OTT audience grew 11% over the same period to 664.9 million.
That difference matters.
Connected TV India is no longer simply an extension of the country’s mobile streaming market.
It is becoming a distribution environment that OTT businesses need to plan for independently.
Connected TV India Is Becoming a Core OTT Channel
A viewer opening an OTT app on a smartphone and a household opening the same service on a 55-inch television may technically access the same content.
Commercially, however, they can represent very different viewing environments.
Mobile is personal.
Television is frequently shared.
Mobile encourages portability and short viewing sessions.
Television can support longer sessions, premium programming, movies, sports and communal viewing.
The interface changes too.
A mobile user taps and swipes from centimetres away.
A television viewer navigates with a remote from across the room.
Simply stretching a mobile interface onto a television therefore does not create a strong Connected TV experience.
That is already influencing how established Indian streaming companies think about product design. In a recent interview, ZEE5 CTO Pramod Prakash described how the service has adapted its experience for Connected TV rather than merely reproducing its mobile interface on the larger screen.
For smaller OTT operators, broadcasters and production houses, the implication is important.
A television application should not necessarily be treated as something to add after the mobile business becomes successful.
The audience may already be there.
And it is growing considerably faster than the overall OTT market.
The strategic question for Indian content businesses is therefore changing from:
“Do we need a TV app?”
to:
“What part should the television screen play in our streaming business?”
That distinction will increasingly affect product design, content strategy, advertising and monetization.
Because India’s OTT audience is not abandoning mobile.
It is becoming genuinely multi-screen.
Why Connected TV Changes the Economics of OTT in India
The rise of Connected TV is not simply adding another device to India’s streaming ecosystem.
It changes where content is consumed, how audiences behave and what kinds of content and monetization models can work.
For OTT businesses, that means a multi-screen strategy cannot stop at making the same catalogue technically accessible everywhere. The experience needs to reflect how people actually use each screen.
The Television Screen Creates a Different Viewing Occasion
India’s smartphone-led streaming boom made video intensely personal.
A viewer can watch during a commute, between meetings or late at night with headphones. Short episodes, clips and vertical formats fit naturally into these moments.
Connected television creates another viewing occasion.
The viewer is more likely to be at home, the screen is significantly larger and the experience can involve several people rather than one individual.
That matters for broadcasters and studios with movies, premium series, sports, live programming, regional entertainment and other content designed for sustained viewing.
Instead of competing only for minutes of mobile attention, these companies can compete for time traditionally associated with television.
The scale is becoming difficult to ignore. The Ormax OTT Audience Report 2026 estimates India’s Connected TV audience at 206.9 million, after growing 60% in a year.
For perspective, that audience alone would represent a substantial digital media market.
One OTT Service Now Has to Serve Multiple Behaviours
Multi-device distribution creates an important product challenge.
The same person may discover a show on a phone during the afternoon and continue watching it on television that evening.
Someone else may browse clips on mobile but reserve movies or sports for the largest screen in the house.
The OTT platform therefore needs to think beyond separate apps.
The more important objective is continuity across screens.
User accounts, watch history, recommendations, subscriptions and content discovery should ideally feel connected even when the viewing environment changes.
This is where an OTT platform designed for multi-device distribution becomes strategically relevant. The goal is not merely to say that content is available on mobile, web and Smart TV. It is to create one streaming business that can reach viewers across those environments.
TV UX Cannot Be a Larger Version of Mobile UX
A smartphone interface is designed around touch.
Connected TV is usually controlled from several feet away using directional navigation and a remote.
That apparently simple difference changes product design considerably.
Text needs to remain readable from a distance. Navigation needs fewer unnecessary steps. Content artwork becomes more prominent. Search needs to work efficiently. Playback should begin without forcing viewers through complicated interactions.
Discovery also becomes critical.
On mobile, users can rapidly scroll through large quantities of content.
Television navigation is slower.
The first few recommendations, categories and featured titles therefore carry more responsibility.
This is why Indian streaming services are increasingly designing specifically for the television environment. ZEE5 CTO Pramod Prakash, for example, has discussed the company’s work on a CTV-specific viewing experience rather than treating television as a simple extension of its mobile product.
For smaller OTT operators, the lesson is not to copy ZEE5’s interface.
It is to recognize that screen context should influence product experience.
Connected TV Can Expand the Opportunity for Advertising
The shift also matters for monetization.
India remains a highly price-sensitive streaming market, making advertising an important component of the economics for many services.
Connected TV introduces a digital advertising environment that combines characteristics of television with capabilities associated with internet-delivered media.
For advertisers, that can mean premium video delivered on the largest screen in the home while retaining digital capabilities around targeting, measurement and campaign management, depending on the platform and advertising infrastructure being used.
The broader advertising market is moving in the same direction. dentsu’s Digital Advertising Report 2026 examines India’s continuing shift toward digital media as advertisers follow changing consumption patterns.
For OTT operators, this makes television strategy relevant not only to audience reach but also to the value of that audience.
A viewer watching a premium programme on a television may create a different advertising opportunity from someone rapidly moving through short videos on a phone.
Regional OTT Businesses Should Pay Particular Attention
Connected TV is sometimes discussed as though it matters only to India’s largest national streaming services.
That would underestimate the opportunity.
Regional broadcasters, film libraries, production houses, devotional networks, sports organizations and language-focused media companies can also serve audiences who increasingly own internet-connected televisions.
For these businesses, the strategic advantage is not necessarily having the largest catalogue.
It can be having the most relevant catalogue for a clearly defined audience.
A Bengali entertainment company does not need to compete with every title available on a national OTT service.
A sports organization does not need thousands of movies.
A production house with a recognizable catalogue does not need to recreate the entire streaming market.
They need enough valuable programming to give their particular audience a reason to open their service on the television.
That is a fundamentally different opportunity.
And as India’s Connected TV audience expands, the minimum scale required to find commercially useful niches can expand with it.
The Real Shift Is From Mobile-First to Multi-Screen
None of this means India’s OTT industry is becoming television-first.
Mobile remains fundamental to the country’s streaming ecosystem.
Instead, the more important transition is from mobile-first thinking to multi-screen thinking.
The smartphone can remain the discovery screen.
Television can become the premium viewing screen.
Web can support accessibility and longer browsing sessions.
Different screens can perform different roles while serving the same audience and the same streaming business.
That creates a more important strategic question than simply asking how many devices an OTT service supports:
Can the platform recognize that viewers behave differently on each of them?
For India’s next generation of OTT businesses, answering that question well could determine whether Connected TV becomes merely another app they maintain—or an entirely new growth channel.
What a Connected TV Strategy Should Actually Deliver
Recognizing the growth of Connected TV is the easy part.
The harder question is what an OTT operator should do differently because of it.
Launching another application and placing the existing content catalogue inside it is not enough. The opportunity becomes more valuable when television is designed as part of the complete streaming business—from discovery and viewing continuity to monetization and retention.
Build One Audience Across Multiple Screens
The strongest multi-screen experiences should not force viewers to behave like different customers every time they change devices.
Consider a simple journey.
A viewer discovers a new series while browsing on a smartphone during lunch.
They watch the trailer, save the programme and leave.
That evening, they open the OTT service on their television.
The series is already waiting in their watchlist.
They begin watching on the larger screen, stop halfway through an episode and later continue from the same point on another device.
From the viewer’s perspective, this feels simple.
From the platform’s perspective, it requires the account, catalogue, playback history and recommendations to work together.
That continuity is important because the real opportunity in Connected TV India is not merely acquiring television viewers.
It is building a relationship with the same viewer across screens.
Design the TV Experience Around Discovery
A Connected TV homepage has limited attention to work with.
Viewers are unlikely to navigate through dozens of complicated menus using a remote simply to find something interesting.
That makes content merchandising particularly important.
OTT operators need to think carefully about what appears immediately after the application opens.
Featured titles, continue-watching rows, personalized recommendations, new releases, live events and genre collections can all reduce the distance between opening the app and pressing play.
For smaller platforms, this can become an advantage.
A service with a focused catalogue may be able to create a more purposeful discovery experience than a platform trying to present thousands of unrelated titles.
The objective should not be to make the television interface look full.
It should be to make the next viewing decision easy.
Match Content Strategy to the Screen
Different screens can also influence programming decisions.
Short-form content may work particularly well as a discovery mechanism on mobile.
Long-form series, films, live sports, concerts, documentaries and premium entertainment can benefit from the immersive television environment.
That creates opportunities to connect formats rather than forcing every piece of content to perform the same role.
A sports organization, for example, could use short mobile highlights to bring viewers into a live television experience.
A production house could distribute trailers and character clips through mobile-first channels before directing audiences toward complete episodes.
A regional broadcaster could use short-form discovery to introduce younger viewers to a deeper catalogue available through its OTT service.
The screens complement each other.
Mobile can create the viewing intention. Connected TV can fulfil it.
Treat the Television App as a Revenue Surface
Connected TV should also be considered when designing the monetization model.
A subscription-only approach is not the only possibility.
Depending on the content business, an OTT service can combine subscriptions, advertising, transactional access, pay-per-view or hybrid models.
Television can play different roles within those models.
Premium subscribers might use the TV app for uninterrupted long-form viewing.
An advertising-supported service might monetize large-screen viewing through video advertising.
Sports businesses could use transactional access for particular events.
Content owners could keep some programming free while reserving premium releases for paying viewers.
The right model depends on the audience and content economics.
What matters is ensuring the television experience is designed to support the business model rather than being added after monetization decisions have already been made.
Smart TV Distribution Should Be Planned Earlier
For a new OTT business, it can seem logical to launch web and mobile first and think about television later.
Sometimes that is still the correct approach.
But the rapid growth of India’s Connected TV audience means television should at least enter the planning process earlier.
Businesses should understand which devices their target audience uses, what proportion of viewing could shift toward television and whether their content naturally benefits from large-screen consumption.
A mobile-first micro-content startup and a regional movie library may reach very different conclusions.
The goal is not to launch everywhere immediately.
It is to avoid discovering after the platform has been built that its architecture, user experience or content workflows make expansion to television unnecessarily difficult.
Using white-label OTT infrastructure can help content businesses approach web, mobile and television as parts of one distribution system instead of independently developing and maintaining every consumer application from the ground up.
Connected TV Makes Smaller OTT Niches More Interesting
Perhaps the most significant opportunity sits outside India’s largest streaming companies.
A national platform needs enormous scale.
A specialized OTT service does not necessarily need the same audience.
Imagine a platform built around one regional language, a particular sport, devotional programming, independent cinema, education or a production company’s existing IP.
As the addressable Connected TV audience expands, these businesses gain access to more households without needing traditional television distribution to reach every one of them.
The commercial question therefore becomes less about whether a niche platform can match India’s streaming giants.
It becomes:
Can it build a valuable direct relationship with a specific audience?
For many content owners, that is a much more realistic objective.
The Opportunity Is Bigger Than Another Device
India’s Connected TV growth should ultimately change how OTT businesses think about distribution.
The television screen is not simply another box to tick on a device-support list.
It can create different viewing behaviour.
It can support different content.
It can influence monetization.
And it can deepen the relationship between an OTT brand and the household consuming its programming.
The businesses positioned to benefit will not necessarily be those with the most applications.
They will be the ones that understand what each screen is best at—and connect those screens into one audience experience.
That is when Connected TV stops being a technical expansion.
It becomes a business strategy.
How Indian OTT Businesses Should Prepare for Connected TV Growth
The rise of Connected TV does not mean every Indian content business should immediately launch applications across every television operating system.
It means television should become part of the platform decision much earlier.
Before expanding, OTT operators should understand their audience, catalogue and monetization model—and determine what role the television screen should play within that business.
Start With Audience Behaviour, Not Device Count
The first question should not be:
“Which Smart TV apps should we build?”
It should be:
“Where does our audience actually want to watch this content?”
A movie library, sports service or regional entertainment platform may naturally generate substantial large-screen demand.
A service built primarily around short vertical episodes may remain predominantly mobile-led.
The correct strategy depends on the viewing behaviour surrounding the content.
Businesses should examine device usage, viewing duration, completion rates, peak viewing periods and the types of programmes audiences consume across screens.
This prevents Connected TV from becoming an expensive checkbox rather than a useful distribution channel.
Define the Role of Every Screen
Once the audience behaviour is understood, OTT operators can decide what each screen should accomplish.
Mobile might lead discovery and short-form engagement.
Connected TV might become the primary environment for long-form viewing, movies, sports and premium programming.
Web could support search, account management and accessible viewing across laptops and desktops.
These roles do not need to be rigid.
The objective is to create a journey in which viewers can move naturally between them.
A successful multi-screen strategy therefore measures the relationship between devices, not simply the number of apps launched.
Evaluate the Television Experience Before Launch
Before releasing a TV application, businesses should test it from the perspective of someone sitting several feet away with a remote control.
Can viewers understand the homepage immediately?
Can they find content without excessive navigation?
Is text readable?
Can they resume something started on another device?
Does search work efficiently?
How quickly can a viewer move from opening the application to playing content?
These seemingly small decisions can determine whether installing an app actually turns into repeated usage.
Connect CTV to the Monetization Strategy
OTT operators should also decide how television viewing contributes to revenue.
For subscription businesses, the large-screen experience can strengthen the perceived value of membership.
Advertising-led platforms need to consider how video advertising fits into the television viewing experience.
Sports and event businesses may explore transactional or pay-per-view access.
Hybrid services can make different parts of the catalogue available through different revenue models.
The monetization strategy should therefore be defined alongside the device strategy—not after it.
Choose Infrastructure for Where the Business Is Going
Technology decisions made during an OTT platform’s early stages can influence how easily it expands later.
Businesses evaluating platforms should consider whether their infrastructure can support the devices they expect to need, along with content management, streaming, security, monetization and audience management requirements.
This is especially important for companies that do not want to maintain separate engineering operations for every consumer application.
A white-label OTT platform can provide an alternative to developing the complete streaming stack internally, allowing the content business to concentrate more resources on programming, audience growth and monetization.
The objective is not to launch on every possible screen.
It is to ensure the technology does not become the reason the business cannot launch where its audience goes next.
Conclusion
For more than a decade, India’s digital video revolution has been inseparable from the smartphone.
That relationship is not disappearing.
But it is no longer the whole story.
The Ormax OTT Audience Report 2026 estimates that India’s Connected TV audience increased from 129.2 million in 2025 to 206.9 million in 2026.
A 60% increase in one year deserves more than another device icon on an OTT product roadmap.
It signals that India’s streaming market is becoming genuinely multi-screen.
For established platforms, that means improving continuity between mobile and television.
For broadcasters and production houses, it creates another route to take existing content directly to audiences.
For sports organizations and specialized content businesses, it opens opportunities to build premium large-screen experiences around clearly defined communities.
And for regional media companies, it expands the number of connected households that can potentially be reached without depending entirely on traditional television distribution.
The opportunity in Connected TV India is therefore bigger than Smart TV applications.
It is about understanding that different screens can perform different jobs within the same streaming business.
Mobile created India’s OTT scale.
Connected TV could change how that scale is watched, monetized and owned.
The next generation of Indian OTT businesses should be prepared for both.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is Connected TV in India?
Connected TV refers to television viewing through an internet-connected device, including Smart TVs and televisions connected through streaming devices. It allows viewers to access OTT apps and internet-delivered video directly on the television screen.
2. How large is the Connected TV audience in India?
According to the Ormax OTT Audience Report 2026, India’s Connected TV audience reached 206.9 million people in 2026, up from 129.2 million in 2025.
3. How fast is Connected TV India growing?
Ormax estimates that India’s Connected TV audience grew approximately 60% year-on-year in 2026, significantly faster than the 11% growth reported for India’s overall OTT audience.
4. Why is Connected TV important for OTT platforms?
Connected TV gives OTT businesses access to the largest screen in the household. It can support long-form entertainment, movies, sports, live programming and premium viewing while becoming part of a broader multi-screen relationship with viewers.
5. Is Connected TV replacing mobile OTT viewing in India?
No. The stronger interpretation is that India’s OTT market is becoming multi-screen. Mobile remains important for discovery, portability and personal viewing, while television can serve longer and more immersive viewing occasions.
6. Do OTT platforms need separate Smart TV apps?
OTT businesses targeting television audiences generally need an experience designed for television environments. Remote-based navigation, viewing distance, search, content discovery and playback behaviour differ significantly from touchscreen mobile experiences.
7. How is Connected TV different from traditional television?
Traditional television generally follows broadcast or pay-TV distribution models. Connected TV delivers video through internet-connected television environments, allowing viewers to access OTT services and on-demand or live streaming applications.
8. Can regional OTT platforms benefit from Connected TV growth?
Yes. Regional broadcasters, film libraries, production houses and language-focused streaming services can use Connected TV to reach internet-connected households directly. They do not necessarily need the catalogue scale of a national streaming service if they serve a valuable and clearly defined audience.
9. How can Connected TV generate revenue for OTT businesses?
Depending on the platform and content strategy, Connected TV can support subscriptions, advertising, transactional access, pay-per-view and hybrid monetization models. The appropriate approach depends on audience behaviour and content economics.
10. What content works well on Connected TV?
Movies, long-form series, live sports, concerts, documentaries, regional entertainment and premium programming can naturally benefit from larger-screen viewing. However, the best content mix depends on the specific audience rather than the device alone.
11. What should businesses look for in a Connected TV platform?
Businesses should evaluate device coverage, television UX, video delivery, content management, playback continuity, monetization options, security, analytics and the ability to manage multiple consumer applications without creating unnecessary operational complexity.
12. Should a new OTT platform launch on Connected TV immediately?
Not necessarily. The decision should depend on audience behaviour, content type, budget and expected television consumption. However, India’s rapid CTV growth means future Smart TV expansion should be considered when selecting the underlying OTT technology, even when television apps are not part of the initial launch.