India has removed the statutory ceiling that limited television advertising to 12 minutes per clock hour, ending a framework that had shaped broadcast ad sales for two decades.
The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting notified the Cable Television Networks (Amendment) Rules, 2026 on August 21, omitting Rule 7(11) of the 1994 Rules.
The timing is significant: linear TV advertising revenue fell 10.3% in 2025, while TV ad volumes declined another 7% in January-July 2026.
What The New Rules Change
Rule 7(11) had restricted programmes to a maximum of 12 minutes of advertising per clock hour, the basis of the industry’s familiar “10+2” framework.
The new amendment does not replace that provision with a higher numerical ceiling. Instead, it omits Rule 7(11) altogether, removing that specific statutory limit. The amendment came into force on August 21, the date of its publication in the Official Gazette.
The change follows a regulatory debate that took an unexpected turn earlier this year. On May 29, the Delhi High Court upheld the existing 12-minute advertising restriction while dismissing challenges brought by broadcasters. The court’s ruling therefore came less than three months before the government removed the corresponding provision from the Cable Television Networks Rules.
The government’s rationale centres on how dramatically India’s television market has changed. The ministry has compared the 62 television channels present when the restriction was introduced in 2006 with more than 900 channels today. FICCI-EY counted 956 channels in 2025, of which 65% were free-to-air.
TV Advertising Is Under Pressure
The policy change comes against a difficult advertising backdrop for linear television. FICCI-EY estimates that linear TV advertising revenue fell from ₹294 billion in 2024 to ₹263 billion in 2025, a 10.3% decline. Advertising volumes fell 11.5% during the year.
The weakness has continued into 2026. TAM AdEx data shows television advertising volumes fell 7% year-on-year between January and July 2026, following a 9% decline during the same period of 2025.
That makes the removal of the cap commercially significant, but it does not mean television advertising demand will automatically rise. Broadcasters can now determine their advertising inventory without the former statutory ceiling, but advertisers still decide where to allocate budgets.
That distinction matters because digital advertising has become the dominant growth engine. Digital ad revenue rose 26% in 2025 to ₹947 billion, accounting for 63% of total advertising revenue, according to FICCI-EY.
Connected TV Changes Equation
The television picture is more nuanced than the decline in linear TV suggests. Connected TV is expanding even as traditional pay-TV faces pressure.
FICCI-EY estimates that Connected TV advertising revenue increased 42% to ₹99 billion in 2025. When linear and Connected TV advertising are combined, revenues were approximately ₹362 billion, broadly stable compared with 2024. Connected TV also reached about 40 million weekly active homes, up from 30 million in 2024.
Meanwhile, television continues to have substantial reach. FICCI-EY estimates that TV reached around 745 million people each week in 2025. The data suggests that the challenge for broadcasters is not simply a disappearance of audiences, but a shift in how those audiences are distributed across linear and connected screens and how advertisers monetise them.
More Flexibility, Not Guaranteed Revenue
For broadcasters, the immediate change is regulatory flexibility. They can now decide how much advertising inventory to offer without the specific 12-minute ceiling contained in Rule 7(11).
But additional inventory does not automatically create additional demand. The commercial value of advertising depends on audience size, programme popularity, pricing, advertiser demand and campaign effectiveness. If commercial interruptions become substantially longer, broadcasters will also have to weigh the potential impact on viewing behaviour.
This makes the post-cap market an important test of whether additional regulatory freedom translates into meaningful monetisation. The answer will depend less on the removal of the number itself and more on how broadcasters use that freedom.
TV Faces A Digital Test
The government’s decision represents a significant change in India’s television advertising framework, but it does not reverse the structural shift in advertising towards digital.
India’s overall media and entertainment sector grew 9% to ₹2.78 trillion in 2025, with digital media becoming its largest segment. FICCI-EY expects the sector to reach ₹3.3 trillion by 2028, with new media projected to account for more than half of industry revenues.
For television, therefore, the removal of the 10+2 cap is best understood as a regulatory reset rather than a guaranteed revenue boost. Broadcasters now have greater freedom over commercial inventory at a time when linear TV advertising is contracting, Connected TV is expanding and digital platforms command an increasingly large share of advertiser spending.
The next measure of the policy will not be how many minutes of advertising broadcasters add, but whether they can convert their enormous television reach into sustainable advertising value without weakening the audience that makes that inventory valuable.
