Ad fatigue crisis hits Indian streaming services: Repetitive, low-cost ads drive viewers away

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Advertising on video-streaming services in India is increasingly resulting in viewer fatigue as these platforms try to supplement plateauing paid subscription revenue with ad money. Users are bombarded with the same long and unskippable ads, often with glitches, that make the viewing experience tedious and disrupt the flow of the show.

Experts said if advertising is to effectively make a mark and grab mindshare, the poor ad experiences must be dealt with urgently. However, rectifying the matter will be challenging. For one, OTTs use CPM, or cost per mille (cost per thousand) as the basis of advertising.

This is a pricing model where the advertiser pays for every 1,000 impressions, or the number of times the ad is shown. The rates for digital/OTT are very low in India because advertisers don't see a wide enough audience base. Plus, competing online platforms like social media and e-commerce are considered more viable for advertisers.

“One of the biggest challenges OTT platforms in India face with advertisements is the extremely low CPM. This happens due to an oversupply of ad inventory and a relatively smaller number of advertisers," said Ujjwal Mahajan, co-founder of Chaupal, a platform specializing in Punjabi, Haryanvi and Bhojpuri. As a result, ad rates for OTTs in India are more than 90% lower than for those in regions like North America.

This disparity creates a major issue for OTT platforms—they don’t want to sell ads at such low rates, which limits the number of advertisers who can meet their requirements. Consequently, viewers end up seeing the same ads repeatedly, leading to ad fatigue and a poorer viewing experience, Mahajan said. Rajat Agrawal, chief operating officer and