Down 11%: What’s driving the surge in the FMCG-TV narrative?

For decades, television has served as the default growth engine for FMCG advertising in India - the single medium capable of delivering swift national reach, cultural relevance and household credibility at scale. But that dominance is gradually being recalibrated.

Confronted with tighter margins, slowing consumption and rising pressure to justify returns, marketers are shifting away from broad, high-cost TV bursts toward channels that offer sharper targeting, real-time optimisation and measurable commerce impact.

The move is not a dismissal of television’s strength so much as a reassessment of its role in a landscape where performance and personalization increasingly shape budget decisions.

The shift is clearly visible in the latest data from the dentsu em Digital Advertising Report 2026. Digital’s share of ad spends has climbed from 12% in 2016 to 59% in 2025 and is forecast to rise further to 70% by 2027. During the same period, television’s share is projected to decline from 21% to 15%, reflecting structural changes in content consumption and advertiser priorities. Audiences are gravitating toward streaming platforms and digital video, where attribution is clearer and optimisation faster, while AI-led planning favours formats that provide granular, outcome-driven data. Traditional television, meanwhile, faces fragmentation and declining time spent.

For FMCG, still India’s largest advertising category, the recalibration is even sharper. The sector contributed 30% of total industry spends at Rs 36,084 crore in 2025, up from Rs 31,467 crore the previous year. Yet within those allocations, digital now commands 64%, up from 53% in 2024, while television has fallen steeply to 29% from 40%. The signal is clear: incremental growth investments are flowing toward platforms that link brand building with measurable business outcomes.

Broadcasters like JioStar and ZEEL have recently in the third quarter attributed softer advertising revenues to reduced FMCG spends.

"The television advertising market remains under pressure, citing reduced spending by FMCG and consumer electronics brands," JioStar CEO-Entertainment Kevin Vaz said during the Q earnings call, noting that weaker brand ad spends (including FMCG) have affected TV advertising, even as subscription and digital revenues expanded.

Domestic advertising revenue of ZEEL declined 10% year-on-year due to slower FMCG spending, with its CEO Punit Goenka expressing confidence about improved ad revenues in upcoming quarters.

The drivers behind this shift are both economic and behavioural. As marketers rein in costs and prioritise efficiency, fixed, high-ticket media like television are being re-evaluated, while flexible, measurable formats gain preference.

Vivek Das, Chief Digital Officer at Madison Media, describes this dual dynamic. "Two things are happening at the same time. On one side, FMCG has been under real volume and margin pressure for the last 18-24 months, so the easiest lever in a soft market is to pull back on large, fixed-cost media like TV and become far more tactical.

On the other side, the consumer has already moved to a Large Screen plus mobile reality - TV for events and family co-viewing, and digital video, creators and commerce platforms for everything else. In that context, many FMCG marketers are discovering that they were over-indexed on TV relative to where growth is actually coming from. TV's mass reach is not in question, but the shape of that reach has changed, and budgets are simply catching up to that reality," Das said.

On with digital now accounting for 64% of FMCG budgets, how much of the move away from television is being driven by performance accountability and personalization versus a real decline in TV viewership and effectiveness, he said that Digital finally allows FMCG to see what works across the funnel.

"A large part of the shift is clearly driven by accountability, targeting and the ability to close the loop from impression to store or cart - search, retail media, quick commerce, and shoppable video are all built for that. At the same time, TV viewership is fragmenting across OTT and CTV, younger and premium consumers are spending," he explained.

That recalibration is echoed by Anil Solanki, Senior Director at Dentsu X, who positions the move as optimisation rather than exit.

"FMCG brands aren't abandoning TV - they're recalibrating it. The pressure to demonstrate sharper ROI, rising digital penetration, and the ability to target consumers closer to the point of purchase are prompting marketers to trim blanket TV spends and move toward more balanced media mixes.

"The shift toward digital is being driven more by accountability and personalization than by any structural decline in TV effectiveness. Television still delivers unmatched scale and trust, but digital offers granular targeting, real-time optimisation, and clearer attribution - capabilities that are increasingly critical in a competitive, margin-conscious environment," he said.

On whether television will regain a strategic position in FMCG media plans going forward, or whether digital and commerce-led formats will continue absorbing a larger share of spends, Das said it is a reset for each medium.

"I don't think this is a 'TV versus digital' endgame; it's a reset of what we use each medium for. TV has clearly taken a knock in 2024-25 as FMCG tightened belts and followed the consumer into mobile, quick commerce and retail media, which is why you see a 10%+ drop in ad volumes even though FMCG and food-beverage still dominate TV inventory. But the same fundamentals that made television powerful for FMCG-fast reach build, family co-viewing, cultural moments-haven't disappeared; they are gradually re-aggregating across linear TV and CTV rather than vanishing altogether.

"So, over the next 2-3 years, I expect TV to play a more selective but still strategic role in FMCG plans: big launches, seasons and tentpoles on Large Screen, with always-on salience and conversion shifting to digital video, retail media and quick commerce.

Digital and commerce-led formats will almost certainly hold a structurally higher share of FMCG budgets than in the past, but the brands that win will be the ones that use television as part of a connected system of attention, memory and response, not those that abandon it or treat it in isolation," he said.

Looking ahead, Solanki added, TV will remain strategically relevant for FMCG, especially for launches and mass awareness.

"However, media plans will look more hybrid than before, with digital and commerce-led formats capturing a larger share of incremental budgets while TV remains the backbone for reach," he said.

The evaluation aligns with broader data patterns. With digital video, retail media and quick commerce offering end-to-end visibility from impression to purchase, FMCG marketers are increasingly favouring accountability over blanket exposure. Yet even as budgets migrate online, television continues to deliver unmatched scale during launches and tentpole moments, suggesting that its role is evolving rather than diminishing.

From a creative and cultural standpoint, the shift also reflects how FMCG engagement has moved from episodic bursts to ongoing conversations. Manesh Swamy, Co-Founder and CCO at FirstAl Consultancy, sees it as a structural reset of the category’s playbook:

"TV isn't dead for FMCG, it's just been friend-zoned, while digital has quietly become the main character at 64% of FMCG budgets. What's really driving this is not a sudden collapse of TV's reach, but the fact that the Indian FMCG playbook has moved from 'prime-time burst' to 'always-on, full-funnel' and TV simply doesn't give you the same agility, addressability or commercial accountability that digital, especially video and social, now does.

"FMCG brands are cutting TV not because it's ineffective, but because it's inflexible in a world where growth is coming from fragmented, vernacular, youth and commerce-linked audiences. TV still delivers mass reach, especially for big tent-pole launches and rural visibility, but digital lets you chase micro-cohorts, plug into culture in real time, and optimise week-on-week instead of waiting for the next BARC cut. The category has hit a point where every rupee has to work harder on both brand and business, and TV alone can't carry that load anymore.

"The 64% tilt towards digital is overwhelmingly about accountability and personalization, not just a verdict on TV viewership. Inside that digital pie, online video is now 45% and social about 30% of FMCG digital spends, which tells you brands aren't trading 30-second TVCs for boring banners, they're trading them for skippable, shoppable, targetable video that can be measured down to the last add-to-cart. Performance, cohorts, commerce signals from marketplaces and quick-commerce platforms, all of these have rewired CMOs to ask, 'If I can see the sale, why settle for just the GRP?' TV viewership has fragmented and migrated into OTT and CTV, but the bigger story is that digital lets you connect brand films, influencers, regional content and retail media into one measurable system, which TV can only partially plug into."

Industry experts said TV will remain a strategic layer for large, mass-reach FMCG brands through new category launches, national repositioning, and rural salience. But it will sit atop a digital and commerce-first structure, not the other way around.

"As commerce-led formats, retail media, creator-led video and CTV scale, the lines between TV and 'digital video' will blur further, but the money will still be accounted under 'digital' because that's where the targeting and dashboards reside. In other words, TV will still get invited to the party for the big songs, but digital will now be running the playlist, the guest list and the bar tab. And that's a structural shift, not a one-year mood swing," Swamy said.

Together, these perspectives indicate that FMCG’s pullback from television is not a sign of decline but of discipline. TV continues to anchor reach and memory, but digital increasingly drives precision, performance and purchase.

As the category balances brand building with business accountability, the future of media planning looks less like a battle between screens and more like an interconnected ecosystem - one where television sets the stage, and digital seals the deal.