Long-format content consumption growing on YouTube in India as connected TV penetration deepens

“While Shorts is growing, the consumption of content longer than 20 minutes on YouTube is actually also growing tremendously,” said Gautam Anand, vice-president and managing director, YouTube Asia Pacific at Google. “As a platform, we historically went from PC to mobile and now, the fastest growing surface for us is the living room.”

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The rise of connected TV sets in urban India is reshaping how content is programmed and marketed, with platforms increasingly targeting family-oriented content over mobile-personalized fare. According to media consulting firm Ormax, 36% of the audience for subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) services in urban India now uses connected TVs regularly.

“Family-oriented content, such as movies, reality shows, and children’s programming, is often consumed together, fostering shared experiences. The multi-profile features of streaming platforms also allow multiple members of the family to create personalized recommendations, making CTV an ideal medium for group entertainment,” said Kaushik Das, founder and CEO of AAO NXT, an Odia-language OTT platform.

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India is now among the top three global markets, alongside Japan and the US, where YouTube ranks as the largest OTT platform on connected TVs, Anand added in an interview with Mint. 

The TV comeback

The platform’s deepening presence in living rooms reflects India’s rapid expansion in connected TV penetration, fuelled by cheap data, affordable smart TVs, and a broadening appetite for premium content beyond traditional OTT paywalls.

To be sure, YouTube already commands a staggering 92% share of all video consumption in India, according to the 2024 Ficci-EY report, leaving paid and ad-supported streaming rivals to jostle for the remainder. But long-form TV consumption is creating new pockets of stickiness.

It’s also influencing how creators think about content. Some studios that have found success on subscription OTTs are now debuting new shows directly on YouTube. For instance, Applause Entertainment recently launched a kids’ animation channel, ApplaToon, on YouTube. The Viral Fever (TVF), known for hits like Panchayat, has put out new series such as MitronPolitan and Very Parivarik on the platform.

As YouTube seeks to scale its pan-India appeal, a key enabler has been its multi-language audio feature, which lets creators add dubbed audio tracks in different languages without creating separate channels. The move is helping content from one part of the country travel seamlessly across others, such as Tamil or Telugu-language videos finding new audiences in the Hindi belt.

People are discovering languages and personalities, and thanks to the multi-language audio feature, creators can now offer dubbed versions of their content, reaching out to newer audiences without knowing those languages, Anand said.

Read this | YouTube AI dubbing raises creator concerns over language advantage

This dovetails with broader trends in Indian media: the nationwide popularity of southern films, the rising consumption of regional content, and the increasing linguistic fluidity of younger digital audiences.

Beyond ads: The new creator economy

While advertising remains a core revenue engine, YouTube is betting heavily on diversified monetization for creators. Memberships, where creators can offer exclusive content to paying subscribers, are gaining traction in India. So is YouTube Shopping, which lets creators embed products and storefronts directly into their videos.

“There are multiple ways in which our partners and creators can generate revenue and we’re unique in the fact that we’re the only ones that share most of that back with our creators, as well. So we’ve not only set the foundations of the creator economy, but will also be the ones continuing to fuel that into the future,” Anand said.

YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium are also growing steadily, Anand said, offering users ad-free viewing, offline access, and background playback. While Google doesn’t break out India-specific revenue, executives say these services are helping monetize high-intent users beyond ads.

YouTube Premium grants ad-free viewing across all of YouTube, including YouTube Music, and allows for offline downloads and background playback of both videos and music. YouTube Music Premium, on the other hand, specifically focuses on the music experience within the YouTube Music app and website, providing ad-free listening, offline downloads, and background playback, but only for music content.

To reinforce this flywheel, YouTube is doubling down on creator investments in India. Earlier this month, CEO Neal Mohan announced a planned investment of over ₹850 crore over the next two years to boost India’s creator economy. More than 100 million channels uploaded content in the country last year, with over 15,000 of them crossing 1 million subscribers, Mohan said at the inaugural World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit (WAVES) in Mumbai.

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Content from India is also travelling far: it racked up 45 billion hours of watch time from international viewers last year, according to the company.

For YouTube, these point to India’s evolving role in the global video economy. It’s no longer just a massive consumption market; it’s becoming a content and monetization hub that’s setting the pace for how YouTube adapts to the future of TV.