VBS 2026
Linear and OTT will coexist in hybrid future
Industry chiefs bet on satellite, AI and 5G-led fusion
MUMBAI: India’s broadcast industry is not heading towards a linear-versus-OTT showdown. Instead, executives across the value chain argue it is entering an era of convergence: where satellite, cable, IPTV, OTT and AI-powered discovery merge on a single screen.
Industry leaders mapped the architecture of India’s hybrid media future: one built on satellite, IP delivery, 5G, data intelligence and AI, at the 22nd edition of the Video Broadcast and Broadband Tech Summit 2026.
The session, chaired by KPMG partner – TMT Sonica Bajaj, explored how broadcasters, digital platforms and distribution partners are building resilient and scalable networks while audience behaviour shifts toward on-demand, personalised consumption, without abandoning linear viewing.
Z chief revenue officer affiliate sales & head-public & regulatory affairs Anil Malhotra emphasised that linear television remains India’s mass medium. The country has roughly 160 million linear TV households across cable, DTH and free-to-air platforms. With television still a shared family device, its reach remains unmatched for large-scale content delivery.
“The only difference,” he noted, “is that linear is one-way, while OTT rides over telecom networks and allows two-way interaction.”
He pointed to aggregation as a common thread. Linear distributors have long bundled channels into unified offerings. OTT players are replicating that model, with consumers subscribing to 10–15 streaming platforms, often packaged by telecom operators.
However, monetisation remains complex. OTT platforms operate under 18 per cent GST, share up to 30 per cent with app stores, and rely heavily on low CPM digital advertising. “It is a thin-margin business,” he suggested, particularly when competing with user-generated content and short-form platforms amplified by algorithms.
Price sensitivity is another structural constraint. A Rs 40 tariff increase, he observed, can trigger millions of subscriber losses. Around 65 million homes rely on free-to-air platforms funded purely by advertising.
Content, he stressed, remains foundational.
Airtel head – telco engineering Ajit Mohan laid out Airtel’s IPTV strategy, describing a shift from audience cohorting to individual-level curation, which he called “N equal to one.”
Rather than forcing consumers to navigate multiple subscriptions and search fatigue, Airtel is building unified billing and universal search across linear and OTT content. AI and machine learning models analyse personality traits, viewing time, language preference and behavioural signals to surface relevant content automatically.
“The customer may soon stop searching,” he said, predicting that conversational AI interfaces could replace traditional navigation within three to six months.
Crucially, Airtel controls both the network and the platform layer, allowing it to monitor playback quality in granular detail, targeting low latency, zero buffering and minimal errors.
For Mohan, the future lies in removing friction from the limited leisure time consumers have: “You may have only 30 minutes. We want to remove the hazard of decision-making.”
Representing the satellite segment, Eutelsat OneWeb senior director Nishitha Kapoor highlighted the potential of low earth orbit (LEO) constellations to address India’s broadband deficit.
India has approximately 314 million households, but only about half own a television. Connectivity gaps remain acute. LEO satellites, she argued, can deliver 150–300 Mbps speeds with latency below 150 milliseconds, significantly lower than traditional geostationary satellites.
Unlike fibre rollouts that require right-of-way approvals and physical infrastructure, LEO terminals can be installed rapidly, even powered via a car battery if required.
Beyond reach, she emphasised redundancy. LEO networks provide genuine independent backup routes, strengthening disaster recovery and resilience for media operations.
The pitch was clear: without affordable high-speed connectivity, immersive AI- and cloud-driven content models risk excluding large swathes of the population.
CloudExtel CEO and co-founder Kunal Bajaj traced OTT’s rapid growth to the transition from 3G to 4G, which enabled mass video streaming and user-generated content. The next leap, powered by 5G, cloud architectures and edge computing, will enable immersive and interactive formats.
“4G drove video. 5G will drive immersion,” he said.
Low-latency networks could drive AR, VR and shared remote viewing experiences, creating communal engagement beyond physical proximity.
“It’s not if, but when,” he suggested, describing 5G as the enabler of the next content revolution.
Hughes Telecommunications CEO & MD Shivaji Chatterjee cautioned against abandoning the efficiency of linear broadcast, especially for live events.
If millions stream identical cricket feeds over OTT, he argued, bandwidth is wasted. Satellite distribution remains cost-effective for mass simultaneous viewing.
He also highlighted IP’s growing backend role, from virtualised playout and encoding in data centres to hybrid satellite-IP last-mile delivery.
From a distribution standpoint, Yadav underscored the untapped opportunity. With roughly 160 million TV homes currently connected, nearly an equal number remain unserved. He argued that television remains a family medium, distinct from the personal nature of OTT on smartphones. Consumers increasingly demand unified billing and a single provider for broadband, cable and streaming.
Linear delivery models, including rapid-deployment satellite systems, could help bridge rural gaps.
Across the panel, one message stood out. India’s future is hybrid: linear for mass reach, OTT for personalisation, satellite for resilience, cloud for intelligence.
Yet the economics remain delicate. In a market where small price changes trigger churn and millions still rely on free content, monetisation models must balance ambition with affordability.
Technology is advancing rapidly. But as multiple speakers stressed, infrastructure alone is not enough. Content must justify the pipeline, and the pipeline must be efficient enough to sustain the content.
VBS 2026
AI and data reshape advertising in converged media era
Industry leaders debate storytelling, CTV growth and ROI metrics
MUMBAI: If advertising once fought for eyeballs, it is now fighting for milliseconds, metrics and mindshare often all at once. At Panel Discussion 5 on Reimagining Advertising in a Converged Media Ecosystem at the 22nd Edition of the Video Broadcast and Broadband Tech Summit 2026, senior leaders from brands, agencies and ad tech firms unpacked how AI, data and connected TV are reshaping the grammar of modern marketing.
Chaired by Rahul Kapoor, VP Partnerships at Trade Desk, the panel featured Sujay Ray of L’Oréal India, Anooj Shetty of WPP Media, Abhinay Bhasin of dentsu India, Sandeep Balani of JioAds, Deepak Karnani of CereOne and Pratap Jain of Chana Jor.
Between performance dashboards and poetic storytelling, the session revealed an industry in transition more measurable than ever, yet more uncertain about what truly matters.
For Sujay Ray, Head of Consumer Experience, Content and Advocacy at L’Oréal India, the conversation begins not with AI, but with imagination.
“The biggest challenge today is the lack of good stories,” Ray said, arguing that brands are increasingly chasing trends rather than crafting distinct narratives. In a world where consumers can access content across countless platforms, differentiation is no longer optional, it is survival.
“Brands are not differentiating their storytelling. Everybody is following what is trending,” he noted, warning that this herd mentality creates a disconnect with audiences.
Ray cautioned against the industry’s growing obsession with performance metrics. “Just because a metric is available, you do not overanalyse it,” he said, adding that marketers have become “slaves to measurability”.
While data is critical, Ray emphasised that brands must invest in deeper frameworks such as Marketing Mix Modelling to identify which mediums actually drive awareness and intent. “If a medium is driving the right intent, even if it is comparatively costlier, it makes more sense than chasing a lower CPM that delivers nothing meaningful,” he argued.
Importantly, he shifted the lens from incremental reach to absolute reach. “The more people know about you, the higher the chances of conversion over time,” he said, underscoring that awareness remains the foundation of brand building whether the final purchase occurs online or offline.
Artificial intelligence, however, was impossible to ignore.
Pratap Jain, Founder and CEO of Chana Jor, shared how his bootstrapped platform is using AI in practical ways generating creatives, designing ad assets and analysing what content keeps audiences engaged.
“We know from the data what people are watching and we create accordingly. AI helps us in doing that,” Jain said.
Yet he drew a firm boundary. “When a human writes a story, it comes with emotions and uniqueness which say a ChatGPT does not have.” For him, AI can support efficiency and scale, but originality remains inherently human.
Abhinay Bhasin, Senior Vice President Product and Technology at dentsu India, positioned AI as a force multiplier rather than a creative threat. It enables rapid simulations, multiple creative iterations and cost effective experimentation.
“AI creates room for experiment,” Bhasin said. Where earlier brands might test one or two routes, they can now generate hundreds of variations, use platform embedded AI to pressure test ideas and refine campaigns in near real time.
He described AI as “the world’s smartest apprentice” always available, capable of processing vast datasets and accelerating execution. But the core of storytelling, he insisted, must remain intact.
Rahul Kapoor noted that campaigns today are more complex than ever, spanning television, OTT, influencer marketing, programmatic digital and retail media simultaneously. The linear funnel has given way to a web of touchpoints.
Anooj Shetty, National Head Growth Account Advanced TV at WPP Media, highlighted how brands now demand incremental reach rather than inflated gross numbers. Deduplication across platforms has become central to planning.
“Every brand is very clear that it should get incremental reach,” he said, pointing out that the focus is on eliminating redundancy while optimising exposure.
He observed that strategy and execution have advanced significantly, “a leap of 60 per cent” but measurement capabilities are lagging at around “30 per cent”. Data from television panels, digital platforms and walled gardens often exist in silos, stitched together through simulations rather than true unification.
Connected TV sits at the centre of this complexity. With approximately 55 million connected TV households in India roughly 25 per cent of total TV homes CTV has reached a scale capable of independently building brands. Yet it occupies a grey zone between traditional broadcast and digital performance media.
“Connected TV lies between digital and traditional,” Shetty noted, creating friction between planners trained in GRPs and those accustomed to impressions and clicks.
Performance, but whose definition?
Deepak Karnani of CereOne pushed the conversation further by questioning what “performance” actually means in a CTV context. While shoppable ads and lower funnel conversions are possible, performance could equally mean attention, awareness, brand lift or footfalls.
“A CTV needs to deliver performance, but what is that performance?” he asked.
Sandeep Balani of JioAds acknowledged that digital’s greatest advantage measurability has also become its burden. Advertisers scrutinise mobile metrics intensely, often more aggressively than CTV, despite both being part of the digital ecosystem.
“One of the curse of digital is that it is very measurable,” Balani observed. Brands demand conversion clarity, sometimes overlooking the role of upper funnel influence.
Bhasin added that the proliferation of walled gardens and changing consumer behaviour have put measurement itself under scrutiny. “As an industry we are obsessed with measurements and numbers. We should look at it from a direction but not get obsessed with it,” he said.
Jain raised a practical concern: while CTV campaigns in the US or Europe can generate significant revenue, Indian CPMs remain comparatively low. Effective monetisation remains a challenge in a cost sensitive market.
Ray responded by reiterating that price should not be the sole driver of investment decisions. The focus must shift from cheapest impressions to meaningful impact.
Shetty agreed that measurement is complex, particularly as the medium continues to grow rapidly. Yet he maintained that the growth trajectory of connected TV signals strong long term potential.
Across the discussion, fragmentation emerged as a defining theme. Consumers are exposed to up to nine hours of content daily across OTT, gaming, television and digital platforms. Navigating this abundance requires coordination across technology, creativity and commerce.
“There is a lot of fragmentation and knowing all of it comes at a cost,” Ray said, calling for harmonisation within the ecosystem.
The panel ultimately converged on a nuanced conclusion. AI and data are indispensable in a converged media environment. Intelligent reach, programmatic precision and unified measurement are critical to staying competitive.
But if advertising becomes only about dashboards and data points, it risks hollowing out the very thing that drives consumer connection.
In a marketplace saturated with metrics, the brands that win may be those that remember that behind every impression is a human being and behind every algorithm, a story waiting to be told.
