RunnTV convenes ICFC roundtable with JioStar, Zee, Magnite on CTV standards for India

September 6, 2026 · mediabrief.com

JioStar, Zee, Magnite, Trade Desk and CloudTV joined the inaugural roundtable of the India Connected TV & FAST Council (ICFC), convened by Runn Media Labs, the company behind RunnTV. The informal gathering explored whether India's Connected TV and FAST ecosystem needs an independent, inclusive industry body to drive standards, measurement and governance, and what structure, funding model and membership categories such a body should carry. Discussions emphasized balanced representation across broadcasters, FAST and OEM platforms, content and channel owners, brands and advertising agencies, with safeguards against control by any single company or segment. RunnTV founder and CEO Manish Sinha called the ecosystem fragmented and underserved by infrastructure despite rapid growth in OTT and FAST viewership on CTV. CloudTV COO Abhijeet Rajpurohit said the industry needed a coordinated push to capture the ecosystem's potential for all stakeholders.

A recognized industry body would give agencies a shared measurement standard for planning CTV campaigns in India, replacing the platform-by-platform metrics they now reconcile campaign by campaign. The roundtable's timing also matters: India's government is moving toward a formal regulatory framework for FAST and Application-based Linear Television Distribution (ATLD) services, and an industry-led body could shape how audience data, privacy rules and quality standards get written into that framework. Sinha framed the session as the start of an open, inclusive conversation, and organizers plan further sessions to gauge how much appetite exists across the ecosystem for collective action.