5 Ways FAST is Changing Festive Advertising in India

For years, festive advertising in India followed a familiar formula: television delivered the scale, digital delivered the clicks, and brands built their biggest campaigns around Diwali. But the screen itself is changing.

Connected TV (CTV) has moved rapidly from an emerging format to a significant part of India’s video ecosystem. India’s CTV audience reached 129 million in 2025, an 85% increase in just one year, according to Ormax Media. At the same time, the rise of free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) is creating new opportunities to deliver professionally curated, linear-style content without a traditional pay-TV subscription. FAST brings back that familiar, scheduled, lean-back way of watching, minus the cable bill, and it is landing in homes at exactly the moment festive viewing hours peak. Advertisers are already responding: CTV's share of festive digital ad budgets has climbed from roughly 4-5% last year to 6-8% this year, and bigger screens paired with a fast-growing FAST audience are already changing what festive advertising on the big screen can look like.

This matters especially during the festive season, when audiences are larger, viewing patterns are more diverse, and brands are competing aggressively for attention. Here are five shifts shaping the next festive advertising playbook.

1. Broadcasters are actively moving onto FAST

Traditional television gave brands scale, but that scale often came with limited control over exactly who was watching. Now, FAST brings some of the characteristics of digital advertising into the television environment, allowing brands to build audiences around content preferences and viewing behavior. TRAI notes that the expansion of CTV, affordable broadband, and zero-subscription content are among the key factors driving FAST adoption. Over 50 TV channels have given up their broadcast licenses in the past three years as viewers move to digital platforms, and established players are moving in the other direction to meet them: ZEE5 is set to launch dedicated FAST channels in India in partnership with Amagi, offering a 24/7 selection of curated movies and shows spanning comedy, drama, and horror.

For festive advertisers, this matters directly: the inventory available on FAST isn't a narrower, secondary version of what's on TV; it increasingly includes the same broadcasters and content libraries festive campaigns have always planned around, now reachable through a free, ad-supported format with a fast-growing audience behind it. This means advertisers can move beyond simply asking, “How many people can we reach?” to asking, “Which consumers are most relevant to this message, and when are they most likely to be receptive?”

2. FAST's reach is expanding beyond premium OTT audiences and Metros

For years, premium streaming audiences in India have been disproportionately concentrated in urban and metro markets. FAST is changing the equation by bringing CTV viewing to a much broader audience base.

The relevant detail for festive planning is where that growth sits: metro cities remain the stronghold for premium subscription platforms, but over 50% of FAST viewers come from Tier 2 cities and beyond, a segment premium OTT has historically underserved. FAST’s active user base has also expanded significantly from an estimated 2-3Mn in 2022 to around 7-8Mn in 2024, with projections pointing towards 18–19 million in the coming years.

This geographic expansion matters during the festive season. India’s consumption story is no longer concentrated in its largest cities, with brands increasingly looking to capture demand across emerging markets and regional centres. FAST gives advertisers another way to bring the scale and impact of the television screen to these audiences, while retaining the targeting and flexibility associated with digital video. The opportunity is particularly significant for categories such as consumer electronics, smartphones, automobiles, financial services and eCommerce, where festive demand extends well beyond the metros.

3. FAST turns viewing context into an advertising opportunity

FAST is designed to replicate the scheduled, lean-back experience of linear broadcast rather than the on-demand model of subscription streaming, and its content mix reflects that design intent: regional-language programming drives much of the genre diversity across the ecosystem's 525+ channels. Its multi-generational co-viewing and distinct daily programming schedule make it particularly relevant for advertisers wanting to reach households ahead of/during the festive period. For advertisers, that creates an opportunity to think beyond who they are reaching to, and also consider when and in what context they are reaching them.

Brands can align family or culturally relevant messaging with morning and afternoon viewing, then shift to product-led or offer-led communication as evening entertainment picks up.

4. Longer viewing creates more conversion opportunities

FAST combines the low-friction access of ad-supported viewing with the lean-back nature of television, creating an environment where audiences can spend extended periods with content. India's CTV viewing has already moved well beyond short-form consumption. Affle’s first-party festive season report in 2025 found an average viewing time of 3-4 hours per day. As households spend more time together around entertainment during the festive period, FAST can provide repeated opportunities to introduce, reinforce or evolve a brand message.

The on-demand TV viewing paced at a viewer’s time is often mirrored with second screen behavior where viewers frequently use a mobile while watching TV content. This makes FAST channels on CTV a potential starting point for a broader cross-screen journey, translating from discovery/intent to consideration/action.

5. More addressable programmatic reach

The significance of FAST for festive advertising is not simply that it adds another video environment. It is expanding who can be reached through the connected screen and, through programmatic buying, how precisely those audiences can be reached. The targeting gap between linear TV and programmatic FAST is substantial enough to change how a festive media plan should be constructed. Geo-targeting capability rises from roughly 20% on linear to 88% on programmatic FAST; behavioral targeting from 12% to 84%; frequency control from 35% to 95%; and real-time optimization from 8% to 92%.

This is particularly valuable during the festive season, when campaigns need to reach diverse audiences across markets while managing frequency and spend across a concentrated window. FAST can bring television-like content to households beyond the premium subscription ecosystem, while programmatic capabilities give advertisers greater control over how those households are reached.

Bringing It Together for This Festive Season

The pattern across these five shifts is consistent: FAST is not a smaller version of digital advertising running on a television, and it is not a replacement for linear TV either. It is closer to linear TV's audience and viewing habits, delivered with digital's targeting and measurement layer underneath. That combination is precisely what a festive campaign needs, since festive advertising has always had to solve for reach and precision at the same time, across a shopping season that runs nine weeks and shifts by the week.

The practical implication for festive marketers is a more deliberate approach to screen planning. FAST does not need to replace linear TV, premium OTT or mobile; its value lies in the different role it can play alongside them by bringing scheduled, shared viewing, broader connected-screen access and programmatic flexibility into the mix. As festive media plans become more distributed across screens and formats, the focus shifts towards understanding where each environment adds value, and designing campaigns around those complementary roles rather than treating every video impression as interchangeable.