Uttam Bharat’s festive gold rush: why free-to-air Hindi general entertainment channels look appealing

MUMBAI: India’s consumption story is no longer written only in its metros. The real story is roaring across Uttam Bharat, JioStar’s term for the Hindi Heartland, spanning Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where scale, aspiration and spending power are rewriting the map of opportunity.

That’s what makes Uttam Bharat particularly valuable this festive season: it is no longer simply a high-volume market; it is becoming a high-value one.

Home to roughly 620 million people, 65 per cent of them under 35, this is India’s next economic growth engine. And the spending spike is already rewriting the rules.

Nearly 1.5 crore new jobs have landed here, fuelled by double-digit infrastructure push and a 4x FDI surge in Uttar Pradesh (UP) alone.

The result?

Consumption growing at 45 per cent across categories, with a sharp tilt toward premium. Tier II and III cities now drive over 60 per cent of India’s e-commerce transactions.

As per industry reports, discretionary spend is exploding in beauty, aspirational consumer durables and fintech. Consumer durables demand is up 10-15 per cent. Fintech is racing at ~35 per cent YoY — 1.5x the industry pace. Loan penetration is expanding 1.5x faster than averages. Aspirational categories like premium smartphones, ACs and washing machines are growing 1.3x faster than mass ones.

Look closer at the premiumisation wave in FMCG: detergent liquid is at 84 per cent plus, handwash liquid at 63 per cent plus, handwash 34 at per cent plus, branded basmati rice at 26 per cent plus, hair colour at 17 per cent plus, and breakfast cereals at 15 per cent plus.

Beauty is particularly electric. Jaipur ranks at the number one spot in beauty e-commerce transactions; Indore sits at the second spot in beauty spend per capita. Searches for K-beauty products have surged 300 per cent across emerging cities all around India!

During the festive window, India’s overall spending has been hitting record estimates of INR 12-14 lakh crore nationally, with UP, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh punching well above their traditional weight in spending on cars, two-wheelers, jewellery, apparel and electronics. UP alone has been leading or near the top in Diwali sales estimates in recent years.

But a consumer boom of this scale creates another challenge for marketers: how do you reach hundreds of millions of increasingly aspirational consumers efficiently, repeatedly and in an environment that builds trust? That is where Hindi free-to-air (FTA) general entertainment channels (GECs) come into their own. FTA GECs reach approximately 83 per cent of audiences across Uttam Bharat. (Source: BARC, OND 2025–Monthly Avg. | FTA GEC in Pay & DD Free Dish)

Linear TV, especially FTA, is the scale weapon that actually reaches the households now trading up. FTA GEC monthly reach in Hindi-speaking markets has climbed from around 343 million to nearly 400 million viewers between 2022 and 2025. Monthly viewing is up over 70 per cent.

JioStar’s FTA channels — Star Utsav and COLORS Rishtey — account for a commanding 36 per cent share of that FTA viewership. Since launch Star Utsav has repeatedly topped the FTA charts, delivering the cultural resonance and mass-affluent eyeballs that pure digital still struggles to match at this scale.

The business proof is already in — and the biggest names in Indian marketing keep coming back for more.

FMCG giants treat Star Utsav as a consistent line item in their media plans precisely because the channel’s audience profile (women 15-45 in Hindi-speaking markets, heavy rural and Tier-2/3 skew) aligns tightly with their mass and emerging premium portfolios.

Two-wheeler makers and entry-level auto players, along with e-commerce platforms, also lean on the channel during sale periods to reach the semi-urban and rural consumers who now drive the bulk of incremental volume.

A Kantar-SYNCMedia cross-screen effectiveness study of campaigns on Star Utsav found that the channel delivered higher search conversion incidence than competing FTA GECs across key categories – 51% for a jewellery brand, 10% higher than the closest competitor; 45% for a private bank, 28% higher; and 29% for a premium two-wheeler brand, 10% higher than the next competitor. The findings highlight Star Utsav’s ability to drive stronger consumer search intent and action compared to other FTA GEC channels.

JioStar’s FTA campaigns for leading e-commerce players have shown average lifts of 1.3x in awareness, 1.63x in consideration and 2.11x in purchase intent across Uttam Bharat. That is not soft branding. That is demand creation that turns into measurable outcomes.

This festive season, the goldmine is not hidden. It is sitting in plain sight across Uttam Bharat — young, employed, aspirational, and watching the FTA Hindi GECs, including JioStar’s FTA channels.

Brands that continue to deprioritise Uttam Bharat in their media plans are not being efficient. They are leaving growth on the table just as the region’s consumers are opening their wallets wider than ever.

Brands looking for success will stop treating it as the periphery and start treating it as the main stage. And watch as the results start coming in.