TV ad volumes fall 7 per cent in Jan-Jul’26, Reckitt Benckiser tops advertiser list: TAM AdEx

MUMBAI: Television advertising in India is not collapsing, but it is thinking twice before it spends. TAM AdEx data for January to July 2026 shows indexed ad volumes per channel down 7 per cent over the same period in 2025, a correction the measurement firm itself frames not as panic but as “a phase of strategic recalibration in advertiser spending.” That is a generous read, and a fair one: this follows a 9 per cent drop in Jan-Jul’25 over Jan-Jul’24, so the medium has now absorbed two consecutive years of moderation rather than one sharp shock. Advertisers are not abandoning the small screen, they are simply being pickier about how much of it they buy.

Underneath that headline number sits a far more interesting story about who is still spending and where. Food and beverages remained the single largest category by ad volume, holding 23 per cent share and topping the sector rankings for the second year running, with services a distant second at 16 per cent and personal care and hygiene close behind at 15 per cent. What stands out is not the leaders but the climbers: personal care, building and industrial materials, BFSI and education all improved their rank in the top ten, evidence that categories with genuinely wide addressable audiences are consolidating share even as the overall pie shrinks. Together the top ten sectors now account for nearly 90 per cent of all ad volume on television, a concentration that leaves precious little air for anyone outside that list.

At the category level, toilet soaps kept their crown, leading with 6.3 per cent share, followed by toilet and floor cleaners at 5.9 per cent and ecommerce, media and social platforms at 3.8 per cent. The genuine surprise is biscuits, which vaulted from twenty-third position in Jan-Jul’25 straight into seventh, the only fresh face among the top ten. Growth, though, tells a sharper story than share. Ecom-other services posted a 10.2 times jump in ad secondages, by far the steepest climb in the data, with biscuits again notable at 2.1 times and other hairdressing up 3.8 times. Two-wheelers, life insurance, noodles and pasta, and coffee all posted double-digit percentage growth, a spread across durables, financial services and food that suggests the recovery in ad spend, where it exists, is not confined to any single corner of the economy.

Advertiser rankings offer the clearest read on who is driving the market. Reckitt Benckiser overtook Hindustan Unilever to claim top spot among advertisers, with HUL slipping to second and Godrej Consumer Products holding steady at third. The bigger story is the reshuffling further down the list: Wipro Enterprises, Britannia Industries and, most strikingly, Google all entered the top ten as fresh faces, with Google’s leap from rank 3203 in Jan-Jul’25 to number ten this year among the more dramatic moves TAM AdEx has recorded in recent memory. Seven of the top ten advertisers improved their ranking year on year, and together the top ten now account for 43 per cent of all ad volume, underlining just how top-heavy television advertising has become.

Reckitt’s dominance shows up just as starkly at brand level. Harpic Power Plus 10x Total Clean was the single most advertised brand on Indian television during the period, with seven of the top ten brands belonging to Reckitt and two to HUL, leaving Flipkart and Google Search Engine as the only non-FMCG names to crack the list. Genre-wise, general entertainment channels kept their long-held lead with 30 per cent share of ad volumes, followed by news at 25 per cent, with the top five genres together commanding more than 90 per cent of all television advertising, a concentration that has barely moved in a year.

Put together, the numbers describe a medium in disciplined consolidation rather than decline. Total volumes are down, but spend is flowing more decisively toward proven categories, dominant advertisers and familiar genres, with just enough fresh entrants, biscuits, Google, ecommerce services, to show the market is still capable of surprises. For a channel that many had written off in the streaming era, that is a fair result.