Brandcast 2025: CTV, Shorts, and YouTube as India's New TV
At this year's Brandcast, we showed how YouTube has become India's New TV, a holistic platform that brings together culture, creators, fandoms, and commerce to create new opportunities for brands.
A fundamental shift is underway in how people consume content, with Indian audiences now expecting to watch what they want, whenever they want, across various screens. Amid this, YouTube is re-imagining what television can be, delivering personalized and interactive experiences.
The numbers tell the story: 87% of surveyed Indian viewers are significantly more likely to use YouTube every day than the average for all other online platforms and TV / video on demand. 1
With its powerful convergence of formats, YouTube is redefining entertainment. From original films, micro-dramas and creator-led shows that captivate long-form audiences to short-form content that thrives on YouTube Shorts and also seen on the big screen, it serves all viewing preferences.
And audiences are tuned in more than ever. YouTube Shorts has over 650 million monthly logged-in viewers, 2 while YouTube reached over 75M people in India ages 18+ on connected TV in April 2025. 3
This reach and scale presents a huge opportunity for brands. In a fragmented media landscape, YouTube has become a holistic video solution, leading many brands to adopt a YouTube-first strategy to drive tangible business outcomes.
For instance, Acko embraced a full-stack strategy with CTV, Shorts, and Demand Gen, which resulted in a 40% YoY growth in business all while achieving an 82% reduction in media costs.
Building on these successes, Brandcast 2025 also introduced new solutions to help brands and creators connect even more effectively:
- Immersive Masthead on CTV for YouTube’s most visible ad placement, delivering a cinematic experience. It gives brands more space on the YouTube homepage with full-screen creative to capture maximum attention in the living room
- Targeting for Urban and Rural, a new India-first solution that empowers brands to buy and target audiences separately across urban and rural geographies, creating tailored campaigns
- Creator Partnerships Hub to manage collaborations with YouTube creators directly inside Google Ads. With this new hub, advertisers can easily deepen existing relationships, discover new creators, and seamlessly integrate authentic creator content into their ad strategies using Partnership Ads
- Built with Gemini, Peak Points will roll out next year to help brands identify the most meaningful moments within YouTube’s popular content to place a brand where audiences are the most engaged
By combining YouTube's incredible scale and reach with the trusted relationships of creators and the precision of AI, the platform is enabling brands to connect with an engaged, dynamic, and ever-growing audience in India.
