For years, Connected TV was sold as the perfect compromise: the emotional power of television with the precision of digital. In India, that proposition arrived at exactly the right moment. Streaming consumption surged, smart TV adoption accelerated, and advertisers eager for premium video environments began reallocating budgets beyond traditional broadcast. But as Connected TV matures, a more strategic question is taking centre stage inside marketing boardrooms: where exactly should the money go? Into the vast, controlled ecosystems of global streaming platforms and OEM operating systems—the so-called walled gardens—or into the broader open web ecosystem of apps, publishers, exchanges and independent inventory? It is no longer a theoretical debate. It is a budget line item. And for Indian brands under pressure to justify every media rupee, the answer is becoming increasingly nuanced. Walled gardens promise scale, premium environments and simplified buying. The open web offers flexibility, transparency and often more efficient reach. Neither side owns the full truth. What brands are discovering is that Connected TV buying is starting to mirror the larger digital economy: convenience on one side, control on the other. As one media leader recently remarked, “The easiest inventory to buy is not always the smartest inventory to own.” That insight captures the current crossroads perfectly.
At present, a significant share of Indian CTV budgets still flows into walled gardens, and for understandable reasons. Large streaming platforms with strong household recognition, premium long-form content and growing advertiser products remain natural starting points for marketers entering the category. If a brand wants quick access to cricket audiences, binge viewers, affluent households or family co-viewing environments, these ecosystems can offer immediate credibility. Their sales narratives are polished, measurement dashboards are improving, and media teams often prefer the operational simplicity of dealing with a few scaled partners rather than a fragmented supply chain. For many first-time CTV advertisers, particularly traditional TV buyers transitioning budgets into digital video, this familiarity matters. Walled gardens also benefit from perception. Premium content tends to create premium assumptions: that viewers are more attentive, households more valuable and outcomes more certain. Whether those assumptions always hold true is another matter, but perception drives planning more often than the industry admits. In India especially, where legacy media buying still influences decision-making, advertisers often equate known publishers with reduced risk. That naturally channels early budgets toward closed ecosystems. Add marquee sports rights, language entertainment and established subscription or AVOD platforms, and the gravitational pull becomes stronger still.
Yet beneath the surface, the open web is quietly winning more serious consideration. As Indian marketers become more performance-minded and procurement-led scrutiny intensifies, questions around transparency, pricing efficiency and audience duplication are getting louder. Brands are asking not just where impressions ran, but how often the same households were reached, what fees were layered into the buy, and whether outcomes can be independently validated. This is where the open web has a compelling story. Through programmatic pipes, independent SSPs, broadcaster apps, OEM inventory, FAST channels and niche streaming environments, advertisers can often access broader supply with greater buying flexibility. They can frequency-cap across sources, layer first-party data, run regional segmentation, test creative dynamically and compare results across partners rather than inside one closed reporting environment. For India’s multilingual and highly segmented consumer market, that flexibility matters enormously. A fintech brand targeting urban Hindi-speaking households, a D2C beauty brand chasing affluent women in South India, or an auto brand wanting high-income metro families may find smarter precision outside the biggest platforms. There is also the issue of economics. As premium platform demand rises, CPMs inside walled gardens can inflate quickly. The open web, when bought carefully, can provide stronger cost efficiency without necessarily sacrificing quality. The caveat, of course, is governance. Open ecosystems reward sophistication and punish laziness. Without supply path discipline, fraud controls and strong measurement, cheap inventory can become expensive waste.
So where are Indian brands actually putting their CTV money? Increasingly, the answer is both—but not equally, and not blindly. The more traditional the advertiser, the more likely budgets begin in walled gardens. The more digitally mature the advertiser, the more likely spend diversifies into open web channels over time. What is emerging is a barbell strategy: use walled gardens for marquee reach, prestige content and simplified scale; use the open web for incremental reach, smarter targeting and cost-efficient frequency management. This hybrid model reflects a more grown-up stage of the Indian CTV market. Brands no longer want ideology; they want outcomes. They are less interested in industry talking points about open versus closed, and more interested in which combination reduces waste, improves recall and drives measurable business lift. In the coming years, the winners will not be the platforms shouting the loudest, but those offering accountability, interoperability and genuine audience value. For marketers, the lesson is clear: CTV budgets should not follow hype cycles or inherited planning habits. They should follow evidence. Because in modern media, walls can protect value—but they can also block opportunity.
