For decades, linear television was India’s most dominant mass medium, delivering unmatched reach across income groups and geographies. That dominance is now weakening. In the past six years, India has lost nearly 40 million pay-TV households, linear TV viewership has begun to decline in absolute terms, and advertising revenues have slipped for two consecutive years, even as the overall ad market continues to grow.
Data from Kantar, Crisil Ratings and industry studies show that the shift is not from screens to no screens, but from scheduled television to digital, connected and free alternatives. So, what happens to TV?
Viewers are leaving
India’s linear TV audience fell from 705 million viewers in the March quarter of 2025 to 689 million by the September quarter, according to Kantar’s Media Compass Report, Q3 2025.
The same report shows that 313 million Indians, 26% of the 15+ population, are now “digital-only” viewers, meaning they access the internet but do not watch linear television at all. This cohort has grown 30% in a single year, with three out of four digital-only users located in rural India, a region once considered TV’s last stronghold.
Puneet Avasthi, director, specialist businesses (South Asia) at Kantar, said television still delivers high reach among those who remain, but fewer Indians are watching it at all. “Over the past 3–5 years, TV viewership in India has seen a gradual decline, particularly in urban markets. While fewer people are watching TV, those who do continue to engage with the medium regularly,” Avasthi told financialexpress.com, citing Kantar data.
Pay-TV subscriptions are in retreat
The sharper pain is visible in paid television. India’s pay-TV universe has shrunk from 151 million households in 2018 to about 111 million in 2024, a loss of nearly 40 million subscribers in six years, according to industry data compiled in an EY and All India Digital Cable Federation (AIDCF) report. DTH platforms have been hit hardest.
A December note by Crisil Ratings estimates that the subscriber base of private DTH operators fell from 7.2 crore in FY19 to 6.19 crore in FY24, and slipped another 9% in FY25, with numbers expected to drop below 5.1 crore by the end of FY26.
“More affluent users are switching to OTT platforms, while budget-conscious consumers are moving to DD Free Dish,” Hakhu said, adding that cord-cutting has resulted in “secular revenue degrowth over the past six years.”
Revenues fall even as ad market grows
Linear television’s weakening grip is most visible in advertising. TV ad revenues declined, with advertising revenue down 6% and subscription revenue down 3%, according to an EY report.
The combined revenue of India’s large DTH operators and multi-system cable operators fell from Rs 25,700 crore in FY19 to Rs 21,500 crore in FY24, while EBITDA declined nearly 29%, pointing to sustained pressure on profitability, according to EY report.
A key inflexion point arrived in 2024, when digital media revenues overtook linear television revenues for the first time in India, reversing a two-decade hierarchy.
Advertisers are following measurability, not habit
Industry executives say the shift is less about content fatigue and more about accountability. “There is a clear move of linear ad revenues to digital media, specifically e-commerce platforms which are linked to point of sale,” Ashish Pherwani, leader, media and entertainment sector at EY India, told financialexpress.com.
Retail media networks and connected TV advertising are growing far faster than traditional broadcast TV, as brands chase measurable outcomes rather than mass reach, according to the reports.
“There is a clear redistribution of media spends,” Chandrashekar Mantha, partner and media & entertainment sector leader at Deloitte India, told financialexpress.com. “Advertising investments are increasingly spread across linear TV, connected TV and OTT platforms, resulting in a relative decline in allocations to traditional linear television,” he noted.
Mantha added that general entertainment channels have been among the most impacted genres, while regional television has shown greater resilience due to cultural relevance and loyal audiences.
Jobs, channels, and the last-mile ecosystem
The contraction is rippling through the distribution. Between 2018 and 2025, the cable TV distribution ecosystem is estimated to have lost over 5.7 lakh jobs, driven by the closure of local cable operators and shrinking pay-TV economics, according to the EY report.
Broadcasters, too, are retrenching. In March 2025, JioStar shut down 11 linear TV channels, including Comedy Central, VH1, and MTV Beats, reflecting what the report describes as the “economic unviability” of several niche genres on linear television.
TV isn’t disappearing—but its centre has shifted
Industry executives caution against reading the decline as extinction. “This is a view of only DTH, which is a part of pay TV. When you include cable, connected TV, and free TV, the large-screen base is still growing at about 1–1.5% annually,” Pherwani said, arguing that India’s home entertainment market is being rebalanced, not erased.
Crisil echoes that nuance, noting that IPTV bundling and regional content strength, particularly in parts of South India, are slowing the pace of erosion for some operators. Still, the direction of travel is clear. Viewers are fragmenting, advertisers are reallocating budgets, and the economics that once made linear TV indispensable are weakening.
Even so, the data suggests that linear television’s role in India’s media mix is narrowing.