Tata Play takes its channel bundle beyond the set-top box
Tata Play, a joint venture between Tata Sons and Walt Disney, is taking its content aggregation and distribution beyond the set-top box, betting on a new app for smart TVs as the streaming wave is poised to take centre stage in the living room.
The direct-to-home company (formerly Tata Sky) has launched Tata Play Smart with over 500 television channels and does not require a set-top box or an antenna.
This assumes significance as connected TV (CTV) or smart television is no longer an urban phenomenon, with a recent report by Kantar estimating that one in three CTV users lives in rural India.
Entertainment industry experts say audiences in smaller towns are spending longer sessions on connected TV, watching live sports, regional entertainment, movies and family programmes together. This creates an opportunity for both vernacular content as well as brands reaching out to aspirational audiences.
According to the latest Ficci-EY media and entertainment report, India's overall CTV base reached 68 million unique sets connecting to the internet each month in 2025, of which around 40 million connected weekly, up from 30 million in 2024. Active connected TV homes are expected to rise to 67 million by 2028, as broadband access increases steadily to over 90 million homes over the period.
Play Smart
The Tata Play Smart, which shall function as a standalone service and does not require an existing Tata Play subscription will follow language-based pricing. It will cost ₹199 for the first language chosen that includes channels across genres in the specific language, followed by ₹99 per month for every subsequent language selected. The platform will be available on Samsung, Android TV, VIDAA, Google TV and FireTV, as well as Android and iOS mobile and tablet devices.
“Our job is content aggregation and distribution besides making content discovery simpler. We continue to do the same while making the user interface easier and familiar for those who are now using the Internet,” Harit Nagpal, managing director and chief executive officer, Tata Play, said in an interview.
While this TV content will also be available on specific broadcaster-owned streaming platforms such as JioHotstar, Zee 5, SonyLIV and so on, Nagpal said the differentiation shall come from a better quality user interface and the fact that the consumer would no longer have to hop across apps to watch everything from a TV serial to a cricket match.
Nagpal said the company continues to acquire new subscribers and that with nearly 100 million households in India yet to purchase their first TV set, there is ample headroom for growth. “The challenge with TV content is that it is freely available as part of telco bundles,” he added.
According to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), the active subscriber base of paid DTH operators declined 13.4% to 48.56 million as of 30 June, 2026 from 56.07 million a year ago. Tata Play remained the largest operator, commanding 30.56% market share.
However, the company posted a net loss of ₹551 crore in 2025-26, up 4.2% from ₹529 crore a year earlier, even as revenue slid 13.5% to ₹3,530 crore from ₹4,082 crore.
“Connected TV is rapidly evolving from a premium platform into a true mass-reach medium. Our latest findings show that more than 60% of CTV viewers who do not watch linear television are from smaller towns and rural markets, highlighting the medium's expanding reach beyond India's metros,” Puneet Avasthi, director, specialist businesses, South Asia, Kantar told Mint earlier.