Premium CTV Rates Set to Rise 15–30% This Festive Season

Connected TV is splitting into two markets this festive season. Standard inventory is moving within a modest band, while premium placements—home-screen slots, marquee OTT properties and live event programming—are being priced as scarce, high-attention real estate.

Industry executives estimate premium CTV inventory is commanding festive season increases of 15–30%, against 5–15% for standard placements. Home-screen advertising has moved even more sharply, with reported increases of 20–30% in some cases.

01 · A two-speed price card

Advantage Insights founder Anil Pandit calls the numbers directional rather than definitive, since CTV deals are negotiated privately. But the shape is clear: standard CTV is broadly benchmarked around ₹250–₹500 CPM, while premium properties can leave that range entirely. Rates cited for Koffee with Karan, for example, put CTV advertising at about ₹2,000 CPM for run-of-schedule and ₹2,200 for L1 placements—figures that reflect marquee demand more than everyday CTV pricing.

02 · Scarcity is doing the pricing

There is a structural reason home-screen placements are moving faster. A television’s discovery surface may carry only one or two ads, unlike a streaming break. Prabhvir Sahmey, CEO and co-founder of Stratpulse Labs, says that exclusivity appeals to some buyers, though he has not seen the same movement across broader OTT rate cards. He also notes that incremental reach is not showing up prominently in recent advertiser conversations—some spend is experimentation or early presence-building in new inventory.

03 · Brands are buying, but not as a sales engine

Acer India and DS Group are increasing festive CTV investment, yet both treat the screen as one part of a wider funnel. Sooraj Balakrishnan, head of marketing at Acer India, says CTV may not always deliver immediate, directly attributable sales, but the company is seeing improvements in share of search for Acer and Acerpure. Acer uses CTV to build consideration, with search, retail media and remarketing converting demand; shoppable ad formats are the next bridge.

DS Group also layers CTV by category need. Rajeev Jain, senior vice president of corporate marketing, says for niche products like pink rock salt, CTV leads; for mass products like Pulse candy, CTV adds incremental reach to linear TV and digital. Co-viewing on the big screen lets one exposure reach several household decision-makers.

04 · Premium content is not premium outcome

“There is a difference between paying for premium content and paying for a premium outcome.”

The line from digital marketing leader Nikhil Kumar names the central tension. A household that sees the same brand across linear TV, mobile video and streaming may generate multiple impressions without adding incremental reach. Higher CPMs can reflect scarcity, not new people.

That makes measurement the real ask. Kumar points to deduplicated reach, cross-screen frequency, brand-lift studies and downstream business outcomes. Pandit favours a broader CTV mix with audience-overlap analysis and frequency controls; Girish Upadhyay, COO of Glassbox, warns against judging CTV on immediate conversions alone, particularly in considered categories such as cars and jewellery where the payoff may be store visits and better downstream conversion.

• Negotiate premium CTV as an audience warranty, not a positioning buy: ask for deduplicated reach and overlap data.
• Pair CTV with search, retail media and remarketing so the big screen builds memory and lower-funnel channels convert it.
• Use premium home-screen slots sparingly; they price for scarcity, so reserve them for launches or reach gaps.

05 · The festive question

The increase is not simply cost inflation. It is a medium differentiating itself by inventory, content and advertiser objective. The remaining question is not whether premium CTV can charge more—it can. It is whether brands can prove the extra spend bought attention or reach they would not have earned otherwise.

Source: Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – exchange4media

Mad About Marketing Desk The strategists and writers at Mad About Marketing, writing up what we see in the work every week.