Advertising on The Times Network: Rates, Channels, Booking Guide and What Every Brand Manager Should Know Before Spending a Rupee

Most advertisers who come to us for Times Network TV advertising have already made up their minds about the network — they just need someone to tell them what it actually costs and whether the audience is as premium as the sales pitch suggests. The honest answer, based on campaigns we have planned and executed across dozens of categories, is that The Times Network genuinely delivers something most English-language TV properties in India cannot: a concentrated, urban, high-income viewership that is actively engaged with news, business, and current affairs content rather than passively watching background television. That distinction matters more than most brand managers realise when they are allocating budgets.

What Is The Times Network and Why Does It Dominate English TV Advertising in India?

The Times Network is the television broadcasting arm of Bennett Coleman & Company Limited (BCCL), which is itself the media conglomerate behind The Times Group — one of the oldest and most trusted media houses in India. What makes The Times Network unusual among Indian broadcasters is not just the scale, which is considerable, but the consistency of the audience profile across its channels; you are reaching roughly the same urban, English-comfortable, economically active viewer whether they are watching a breaking news segment on Times Now or a personal finance show on ET Now.

BARC India data has consistently placed Times Now among the top-ranked English news channels in India, and the network as a whole claims a cumulative viewership that the FICCI-EY Media and Entertainment Report has cited as among the most concentrated premium audiences in Indian television. What a lot of people miss is that "premium" in this context is not just a marketing word — it translates directly into advertiser outcomes, because the viewers on these channels have higher disposable incomes, make more considered purchase decisions, and are more likely to act on advertising for financial products, automobiles, real estate, and lifestyle categories than the average Hindi GEC viewer. Our experience at SmartAds shows that the cost-per-quality-contact on Times Network channels is frequently lower than it appears when you look at the raw CPM, precisely because wastage is so much lower.

The network's reach extends well beyond India's borders; The Times Network distributes its channels to over 100 countries, which creates an unusual opportunity for brands targeting the NRI audience — particularly for categories like remittance services, Indian real estate, insurance, and educational products aimed at families with members abroad. This international distribution, managed through Media Network and Distribution (India) Ltd (MNDIL), is something very few advertisers think to ask about, and frankly speaking, it is one of the more underused advantages of advertising on The Times Network for the right category.

Which Channels Are Part of The Times Network for Advertising?

The Times Network portfolio is broader than most people initially assume, and understanding which channel serves which audience is the first step toward building a media plan that actually works. Times Now is the flagship English news channel, which has built its identity around fast-paced news coverage, political debates, and primetime programming that draws an educated, opinionated urban audience; ET Now is the dedicated English-language business news channel, which reaches investors, entrepreneurs, senior corporate professionals, and anyone tracking markets and macroeconomics. Mirror Now covers urban issues, civic affairs, and social commentary, which gives it a slightly younger and more socially conscious viewer profile compared to Times Now.

Beyond the news channels, the network includes entertainment properties that serve very different targeting needs. Movies Now and MNX carry Hollywood and international film content, which attracts an English-proficient, multiplex-going audience that is particularly valuable for lifestyle, technology, and premium consumer goods advertisers. Romedy Now targets women viewers with romantic and comedy programming, while Zoom TV is the network's entertainment and celebrity news channel — both of which are relevant for fashion, beauty, FMCG, and lifestyle brands. Movies Now advertising and Zoom channel advertising tend to attract different campaign objectives than the news channels; they are more about sustained brand awareness and frequency than the high-attention, high-intent environment of Times Now or ET Now.

The Hindi-language extensions of the network deserve more attention than they typically receive in media planning conversations. Times Now Navbharat brings the Times Now editorial approach to Hindi-speaking audiences, which dramatically expands the reach of a Times Network campaign into Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities where English news penetration is lower; ET Now Swadesh does the same for business news in Hindi, reaching a rapidly growing segment of retail investors and small business owners who are consuming financial content in their first language. At SmartAds, we have increasingly recommended Times Now Navbharat advertising and ET Now Swadesh as part of combined campaigns for financial services clients who want the credibility of the Times brand but need to reach beyond the English-comfortable metro audience.

What Ad Formats Can You Book on Times Network Channels?

Television advertising on The Times Network is not limited to the 30-second TV commercial that most people picture when they think about TV ads; the format landscape is considerably richer, and choosing the right format is often where campaigns either find efficiency or bleed budget unnecessarily. The standard TVC — whether a 10-second ad, a 20-second ad, or the traditional 30-second ad — remains the backbone of most campaigns, and it is what gets bought through Free Commercial Time (FCT) slots in the programming schedule. FCT is the straightforward ad break inventory, which is what most first-time advertisers default to, and it is measured and traded on the basis of TRP and CPRP.

Non-FCT formats are where things get genuinely interesting for brands that want to break through the clutter. The L-band is an overlay that appears at the bottom of the screen in an L-shaped format during live programming — it is particularly effective during high-viewership moments like election results, budget announcements, or breaking news, because the viewer's attention is already locked on the screen. The aston band is a horizontal ticker-style overlay, which works well for short, punchy brand messages that need to be seen without interrupting the content. The scroller ad runs across the bottom of the screen as a text-based message, and the logo bug is a persistent small-format brand presence in a corner of the screen — both of which are used for sustained visibility during programming rather than in ad breaks.

Sponsorship and branded content are the formats we most often recommend to clients who have the budget and the patience to build something more durable than a flight of spots. Show sponsorships on Times Network channels — where a brand is named as the presenting sponsor of a specific programme or segment — deliver a level of brand recall that isolated TVC spots rarely match; we have seen this work particularly well for financial services brands sponsoring market analysis segments on ET Now, and for automobile brands sponsoring primetime debate shows on Times Now. Branded content and content integration, where the brand's message is woven into the editorial fabric of a programme rather than placed around it, is available on The Times Network and represents one of the most underused formats in the Indian TV advertising market.

How Much Does Times Network TV Advertising Cost in India?

This is the question every client asks first, and the honest answer is that the advertising rates on Times Network channels vary enough that a single number would be misleading — but we can give you a framework that is far more useful than a rate card. The card rate for a 10-second ad on Times Now during prime time works out to somewhere in the range of ₹75,000 to ₹1.5 lakh per spot, depending on the specific time band, the programme, and the season; a 30-second TVC in the same environment would be priced proportionally higher, typically in the ballpark of ₹2 lakh to ₹4 lakh per spot at card rate. These are card rates, which almost no advertiser actually pays — negotiated rates through a media buying agency typically come in at a significant discount, sometimes 30% to 50% below card depending on volume and timing.

ET Now advertising rates tend to be somewhat lower than Times Now on a per-spot basis, which surprises some clients given the quality of the audience; the reason is that Times Now has higher absolute viewership numbers, which drives up the rate, while ET Now delivers a more niche but arguably more valuable business audience. The CPRP (Cost Per Rating Point) on ET Now, when calculated against the business audience specifically, is actually very competitive — we have found that for financial services, BFSI, and B2B categories, ET Now advertising delivers a better return on investment than the raw rate comparison would suggest. Mirror Now advertising rates are generally lower still, which makes it an efficient option for brands that want to be present in the Times Network environment without the prime-time Times Now price tag.

For non-FCT formats, the pricing structure is different. An L-band on Times Now during a major news event — a Union Budget day, an election night, a major geopolitical development — can command rates that are multiples of the standard slot rate, because the viewership spikes dramatically and advertisers are competing for a fixed inventory. Sponsorships are typically structured as packages rather than per-spot rates, with a weekly or monthly commitment that bundles logo bugs, opening and closing credits, and sometimes branded content elements; these packages can range from a few lakhs per week for smaller programmes on channels like Zoom or Mirror Now to several crores per month for flagship shows on Times Now. At SmartAds, we always tell our clients that the sponsorship route, while more expensive upfront, often delivers a lower effective cost-per-impression over the campaign period because of the sustained visibility it creates.

What Is the Difference Between Prime Time and Non-Prime Time Advertising on Times Network?

Prime time on Times Network channels is broadly defined as the 7 PM to 11 PM window, which is when the flagship debate and analysis programmes air and when viewership peaks across Times Now, ET Now, and Mirror Now; this is the inventory that commands the highest rates and the most competitive booking environment. The morning prime time band — roughly 7 AM to 10 AM — is also considered premium, particularly on ET Now where the pre-market and opening bell programming draws a highly engaged audience of traders and investors who are making real-time financial decisions. These two windows account for a disproportionate share of the total viewership, which is why prime time advertising on Times Network channels is both the most expensive and, in many cases, the most effective choice.

Non-prime time advertising — which covers the afternoon and late-night bands, as well as the early morning hours — offers a meaningfully different value proposition; the rates are substantially lower, sometimes 40% to 60% below prime time card rates, and the competition for inventory is less intense. RODP (Run on Day Period) buying, where the network places your spots across the broadcast day without guaranteeing specific time bands, is the most economical way to build frequency on Times Network channels and is particularly useful for campaigns where reach and repetition matter more than the prestige of a specific programme environment. We have used RODP effectively for several clients who needed to maintain a continuous Times Network presence on a constrained budget — a healthcare client in Mumbai, for instance, ran a three-month RODP campaign on Times Now that delivered consistent brand recall scores at roughly 60% of what a prime-time-only schedule would have cost.

The decision between prime time and non-prime time should really be driven by the campaign objective rather than by a default assumption that prime time is always better. For a brand launch or a high-stakes product announcement, the concentration of attention in prime time is worth the premium; for a sustained awareness campaign or a category where repeated exposure builds preference over time, a mix of prime time spots and non-prime time frequency can deliver better overall ROI. What a lot of people miss is that the audience on Times Network channels during non-prime time is not a fundamentally different audience — it is often the same urban affluent viewers, just at a different point in their day, which means the targeting efficiency is preserved even when the absolute viewership numbers are lower.

How Do You Book a TV Ad on The Times Network?

The booking process for Times Network TV advertising can be approached in two ways, and the difference between them matters more than most advertisers realise. Direct booking through The Times Network's sales team is possible, and for very large advertisers with dedicated relationships, it can work well; but for most brands — particularly those without an established history of TV advertising or those working with budgets under a few crores — going through a media buying agency is almost always the more efficient route. The reason is straightforward: agencies aggregate buying power across multiple clients, which gives them negotiating leverage that an individual advertiser simply cannot replicate, and they also have visibility into inventory availability across time bands that is not easily accessible to direct buyers.

The practical booking process begins with a media plan that specifies the channel or channels, the time bands, the ad format, the duration of the campaign, and the target GRPs (Gross Rating Points) or reach objectives; this plan is then submitted to the network's sales team, which responds with availability and rates. In our experience at SmartAds, the lead time for a standard FCT campaign on Times Network channels should be at least two to three weeks for non-peak periods, and four to six weeks for high-demand periods like the Union Budget, general elections, the IPL season, or the Diwali festive window. Creative materials — the actual TVC or non-FCT format assets — need to be submitted in the network's specified technical format, typically a high-definition file in the broadcast-standard aspect ratio, with audio levels and compression meeting TRAI and network specifications.

For first-time advertisers on The Times Network, there is a minimum spend threshold to be aware of; while The Times Network does not publicly publish a hard floor, our experience suggests that campaigns below roughly ₹5 to 10 lakh in total spend are difficult to execute meaningfully as standalone FCT campaigns, because the number of spots that budget buys at Times Now rates is too small to generate measurable frequency. Non-FCT formats like the scroller ad or aston band can be more accessible entry points for smaller budgets, and some programme sponsorships on the smaller channels in the network are structured at price points that make them viable for mid-sized advertisers. The key is working with someone who knows the inventory well enough to find the right entry point for the budget at hand.

What Is FCT and Non-FCT Branding on Times Network?

FCT, or Free Commercial Time, is the regulated ad break inventory that TRAI governs — channels are permitted to carry a maximum of 12 minutes of advertising per hour of programming, and this is the inventory that is bought, sold, and measured through the standard TRP and CPRP framework. When most people talk about "buying a spot" on Times Network channels, they are talking about FCT; it is the 10-second ad, the 30-second TVC, the 20-second cut-down that runs in the commercial breaks between programme segments. FCT is the most transparent and measurable form of Times Network TV advertising, because BARC India measures viewership at the programme and time-band level, which allows advertisers to calculate CPRP and compare efficiency across channels and time bands with reasonable precision.

Non-FCT branding is everything else — the L-band, the aston band, the scroller ad, the logo bug, the sponsorship credit, the branded content integration — and it operates outside the standard ad break framework. The commercial logic of non-FCT formats is that they appear during programming rather than during breaks, which means they benefit from the full attention the viewer is giving to the content; a logo bug on Times Now during a prime time debate is seen by every viewer watching that debate, not just those who happen to be in the room when the ad break runs. Non-FCT inventory on Times Network channels is not measured by BARC in the same way that FCT is, which makes ROI calculation less straightforward — but it also means it is not subject to the same competitive bidding pressure, and experienced media buyers can often negotiate strong value in this space.

The most sophisticated campaigns on The Times Network typically combine FCT and non-FCT elements in a way that uses each for what it does best; FCT for reach and frequency building, non-FCT for contextual relevance and brand association with specific content environments. We worked with a BFSI client running a campaign around the Union Budget period on ET Now — the FCT spots drove broad awareness, while an L-band during the live budget telecast and a segment sponsorship on the post-budget analysis show created a level of brand association with financial credibility that the spots alone could not have delivered. The total campaign cost was higher than a pure FCT approach, but the brand recall scores three weeks post-campaign were nearly double what the client had achieved with FCT-only campaigns in previous years.

Who Is the Target Audience on Times Network Channels?

The audience profile of The Times Network is the single most compelling argument for advertising on it, and it is worth understanding in some detail rather than accepting the network's own summary description. Times Now and ET Now reach what BARC classifies as CS AB (Cable and Satellite, socioeconomic classes A and B) audiences — which in practical terms means households with higher incomes, higher education levels, and higher consumption of financial products, premium consumer goods, and lifestyle services. The concentration of this audience on Times Network channels is higher than on almost any other television property in India, which is why the network has historically attracted advertising from banking and financial services, automobile manufacturers, real estate developers, luxury goods brands, and technology companies.

The urban affluent viewer on Times Network is not just wealthy — they are also influential; research has consistently shown that English news channel viewers in India are disproportionately represented among opinion leaders, purchase decision-makers in their households and workplaces, and early adopters of new products and services. For a brand in the premium segment, reaching 100,000 Times Network viewers may be more valuable than reaching a million viewers on a mass-market channel, because the former group has both the means and the inclination to act on the advertising. This is a point we make frequently to clients who are comparing Times Network TV advertising rates against mass-market Hindi GEC rates and concluding that the English news channel is "too expensive" — the comparison is only valid if you are trying to reach the same audience, which you are not.

The Hindi-language channels in the network — Times Now Navbharat and ET Now Swadesh — extend the reach into a slightly broader but still premium audience; these channels attract the upwardly mobile Hindi-speaking viewer in metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru, as well as in Tier 1 cities like Lucknow, Jaipur, and Ahmedabad, who is consuming news and financial content in Hindi but shares the economic profile and aspirational orientation of the English-channel viewer. For brands that want to reach the premium Indian consumer without restricting themselves to English-comfortable audiences, a combined plan across Times Now, Times Now Navbharat, and ET Now Swadesh can deliver remarkable coverage of the high-net-worth and high-income-potential audience across PAN India.

How Does Times Network Compare to Other TV Networks for Advertisers?

The honest comparison between The Times Network and other English news networks in India comes down to a few key variables: absolute viewership, audience quality, content credibility, and commercial flexibility. On absolute viewership, Times Now has historically competed at the top of the English news channel rankings, trading positions with other networks depending on the news cycle; during major political events, budget days, and national crises, Times Now's viewership spikes are among the largest in the English news category. On audience quality, the CS AB concentration on Times Network channels is consistently strong, which is what makes the CPRP calculation work in the network's favour for premium advertisers even when absolute GRPs are not the highest in the category.

What differentiates The Times Network commercially is the breadth of the portfolio — the ability to build a campaign that spans English news, business news, entertainment, and Hindi news under a single network umbrella, with consolidated buying and a unified audience relationship. A competitor network that offers only news channels cannot provide the entertainment and lifestyle targeting that Movies Now, Romedy Now, and Zoom TV deliver; conversely, a network that is strong in entertainment but lacks a credible news presence cannot offer the high-attention, high-intent environment that Times Now and ET Now provide. For advertisers in categories like financial services, automobiles, and real estate, the combination of ET Now advertising and Times Now advertising within a single network plan is a particularly powerful construct.

The digital and connected TV extensions of The Times Network are increasingly relevant to this comparison. The Times Network's digital properties — including the Times Now website and app, the ET Now digital platform, and the network's presence on connected TV (CTV) platforms — allow advertisers to extend their television campaign into digital environments with the same brand-safe, premium-content context. OTT advertising on Times Network's digital extensions, combined with a linear TV campaign, creates a cross-platform reach that is difficult to replicate with a network that lacks strong digital properties; and as connected TV adoption accelerates in Indian urban households, this digital integration is becoming a more significant part of the value proposition. Programmatic advertising on the network's digital inventory is also now available, which opens up audience-based buying that complements the content-based buying on linear TV.

How Can You Measure ROI from Your Times Network TV Campaign?

Return on investment measurement for television advertising has historically been one of the more contested areas of media planning, and Times Network TV advertising is no exception; but the tools and methodologies available today are considerably more sophisticated than they were even five years ago. BARC India provides the foundational viewership data — TRP scores, GRPs, reach and frequency metrics — which allow advertisers to calculate CPRP and compare the efficiency of their Times Network campaign against benchmarks from previous campaigns or industry norms. The CPRP on Times Now for the CS AB audience typically works out to somewhere between ₹8,000 and ₹20,000 depending on the time band and programme, which is a number that needs to be evaluated in the context of what that audience quality is worth to the specific brand rather than compared directly to mass-market channel CPRPs.

Beyond the BARC metrics, brand tracking studies — which measure aided and unaided brand awareness, brand recall, and purchase intent before and after a campaign — are the most direct way to measure the impact of Times Network TV advertising on brand health. We have run pre-post brand tracking for several clients on Times Network campaigns; a consumer durables brand we worked with ran a six-week campaign combining Times Now advertising and ET Now advertising, and their post-campaign brand recall among the CS AB audience in metro cities improved by roughly 18 percentage points compared to the pre-campaign baseline, which translated into a measurable lift in consideration scores. These are the numbers that matter when you are justifying a television advertising budget to a CFO or a board — not just GRPs and CPRPs, but actual movement in brand metrics.

Digital attribution has added another layer of measurability that was not available in the purely linear TV era. For brands that run concurrent digital campaigns alongside their Times Network TV advertising, it is now possible to measure the lift in search volume, website traffic, and digital conversion rates that correlates with television exposure; this cross-media attribution approach, which is increasingly used by sophisticated advertisers, tends to show that television advertising — particularly on premium, high-attention channels like Times Now — drives a disproportionate share of the search and consideration activity that eventually converts in digital channels. At SmartAds, we have seen this pattern consistently enough that we now routinely recommend building a digital tracking framework before a Times Network campaign launches, so that the TV-driven digital lift can be captured and reported as part of the overall ROI calculation.

Why Do Premium Brands Choose Times Network Over Other TV Networks?

There is a reason that the advertiser roster on Times Network channels reads like a who's who of premium Indian and multinational brands — FMCG majors, leading private banks, luxury automobile manufacturers, real estate developers, and technology companies have all made Times Network TV advertising a consistent part of their media plans. The reason is not simply prestige, though the brand-safe, credible content environment of The Times Network does carry reputational value; it is the combination of audience quality, content context, and commercial reach that makes the network the default choice for brands that are selling to the urban affluent Indian consumer.

The context in which an advertisement appears on television matters more than most advertisers acknowledge. A luxury automobile TVC that runs during a Times Now prime time debate on economic policy is seen by a viewer who is already in a frame of mind that is receptive to aspirational, high-value messaging; the same TVC running during a reality show on a mass-market channel reaches a viewer whose mental context is entertainment and escapism, which is a fundamentally different state of receptivity. This contextual alignment between the Times Network's content and the messaging of premium advertisers is something that cannot be fully captured in a CPRP calculation, but it is real, and it is one of the reasons that brand recall scores for premium categories tend to be higher on Times Network channels than the raw viewership numbers would predict.

Seasonal and event-based advertising on The Times Network is another dimension of this premium positioning. Budget Day on ET Now is one of the highest-viewership events in Indian business television, and the advertising inventory around the Union Budget telecast is among the most sought-after in the entire Indian TV advertising market; we have seen clients in the financial services sector build entire quarterly brand campaigns around a Budget Day presence on ET Now, using the event as a credibility anchor for messaging about investment products, insurance, and wealth management. Similarly, election coverage on Times Now generates viewership spikes that rival major sporting events for the English news audience, and the brands that are present during these moments benefit from an association with national significance that is difficult to manufacture through any other media channel.

What Sectors Benefit Most from Advertising on The Times Network?

The categories that consistently find the best return on investment from Times Network TV advertising are those whose target customers overlap most directly with the network's urban affluent, English-comfortable, high-income viewership. Banking, financial services, and insurance — the BFSI sector — is the most natural fit; ET Now advertising in particular reaches an audience that is actively managing investments, making insurance decisions, and evaluating financial products, which means the advertising context and the audience intent are aligned in a way that is rare in mass media. We have worked with several BFSI clients for whom ET Now has become a near-permanent fixture in their media plan, not because it is the cheapest option but because the quality of the leads and the brand associations it generates are consistently superior to alternatives.

Automobiles — particularly premium and luxury segments — have long been among the heaviest spenders on Times Network channels, and the logic is straightforward: the Times Network audience is exactly the demographic that is buying SUVs, sedans, and premium hatchbacks. Real estate developers targeting the premium residential and commercial segments find Times Now advertising particularly effective for reaching the decision-maker audience in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru. Technology brands — both consumer electronics and enterprise software — have increasingly shifted budget toward Times Network channels as the network's audience has proven to be among the most digitally active and technology-forward in Indian television.

Beyond these core categories, education — particularly higher education, professional certification, and EdTech — has emerged as a significant advertiser on Times Network channels, driven by the network's reach among parents and young professionals who are making educational investment decisions. Healthcare and pharmaceutical advertising, which is subject to regulatory constraints in India, finds Times Network channels valuable for disease awareness and OTC product campaigns targeting the health-conscious, information-seeking urban audience. Frankly speaking, any brand whose customer is an urban, educated, economically active Indian adult should at least evaluate Times Network TV advertising as part of their media plan — the question is not whether the audience is right, but whether the budget and the campaign objective justify the investment.

BARC Ratings and TRP Performance of Times Network Channels

BARC India — the Broadcast Audience Research Council — is the industry body that measures television viewership in India, and understanding how BARC ratings work is essential to evaluating the value of Times Network TV advertising. BARC uses a panel of households equipped with BAR-O-Meters, which passively track what is being watched on each television set in the household; the data is aggregated and reported as TRPs (Television Rating Points) for programmes and channels, which represent the percentage of the target audience that watched a given programme or channel at a given time. For advertisers on Times Network channels, the BARC data is the primary currency of the buying and selling conversation — it is what determines the CPRP and what allows post-campaign evaluation of whether the plan delivered the promised reach and frequency.

Times Now has consistently ranked as the number one or number two English news channel in India in BARC ratings, with particularly strong performance during high-news-value periods; ET Now holds a strong position in the business news category, which is a smaller but highly valuable niche. What advertisers should understand about BARC ratings for English news channels is that the absolute TRP numbers are lower than those for mass-market Hindi GECs — this is expected and appropriate, because the English news audience is a subset of the total television universe — but the quality-adjusted value of each rating point is higher. The CPRP for the CS AB audience on Times Now, when calculated correctly, is often more efficient than it appears when compared to raw TRP-based CPRP on mass channels.

One nuance that the GroupM TYNY Report and the Dentsu e4m Report have both highlighted is the growing gap between linear TV viewership and total content consumption on news channels; Times Network's digital properties are attracting significant viewership that is not captured in BARC's linear TV measurement, which means that the total audience for Times Now and ET Now content is larger than the TRP numbers alone suggest. For advertisers who are thinking about the full media plan — combining Times Network TV advertising with digital advertising on the network's owned platforms — this unmeasured digital viewership represents additional value that is not priced into the linear TV rate. At SmartAds, we factor this cross-platform reach into our campaign planning for clients who want to maximise their Times Network investment.

FAQs on Times Network TV Advertising

Q: What channels are part of The Times Network for TV advertising in India?

The Times Network portfolio includes Times Now (English news), ET Now (English business news), Mirror Now (urban affairs and social issues), Movies Now (Hollywood films), MNX (Hollywood movies and series), Romedy Now (romantic and comedy entertainment), Zoom TV (celebrity and entertainment news), Times Now Navbharat (Hindi news), and ET Now Swadesh (Hindi business news). Each channel serves a distinct audience segment, which means a well-constructed Times Network advertisement campaign can be targeted very precisely by content genre and language preference. The network's combined reach across these channels makes it one of the most versatile premium television advertising platforms in India.

Q: How much does it cost to advertise on Times Network channels like Times Now and ET Now?

The advertising rates on Times Network channels vary significantly by channel, time band, format, and season. As a general orientation, a 10-second FCT spot on Times Now during prime time is in the ballpark of ₹75,000 to ₹1.5 lakh at card rate, while ET Now rates for equivalent inventory tend to be somewhat lower. Non-FCT formats like L-bands and sponsorships are priced differently and are typically negotiated as packages. The actual rates paid by advertisers working through a media buying agency are generally 30% to 50% below card rates, depending on the volume of the buy and the timing of the booking.

Q: What is the minimum budget required to run a TV ad campaign on The Times Network?

There is no formally published minimum spend, but practically speaking, a meaningful FCT campaign on Times Now or ET Now requires a budget of at least ₹5 to 10 lakh to generate enough spots for measurable frequency. Smaller budgets can be deployed more effectively through non-FCT formats — a scroller campaign or a short sponsorship on Zoom TV or Mirror Now, for instance, can be structured at lower price points. For brands with budgets under ₹5 lakh, we typically recommend starting with a digital campaign on Times Network's owned platforms before committing to linear TV, and building toward television as the brand's presence grows.

Q: What is the difference between FCT and Non-FCT advertising on Times Network?

FCT (Free Commercial Time) refers to the standard ad break inventory — the 10-second, 20-second, and 30-second TV commercials that run in the commercial breaks between programme segments, governed by TRAI's 12-minutes-per-hour limit. Non-FCT advertising encompasses everything that appears during programming rather than in breaks: L-bands, aston bands, scroller ads, logo bugs, show sponsorships, and branded content integrations. FCT is measured by BARC and traded on TRP and CPRP metrics; non-FCT is priced and evaluated differently, often on the basis of programme viewership and contextual value rather than standardised rating points.

Q: What ad formats are available on Times Network — TVC, Aston Band, L-Band, or Sponsorship?

All of these formats are available on Times Network channels. The standard TVC (10-second, 20-second, 30-second, or longer) runs as FCT in ad breaks. The L-band is a screen overlay in an L-shape that appears during live programming. The aston band is a horizontal overlay, typically at the bottom of the screen. The scroller ad is a text-based message running across the lower portion of the screen. The logo bug is a persistent small brand presence in a screen corner. Show sponsorships bundle opening and closing credits, logo bugs, and sometimes branded content elements into a programme-level association. Branded content and segment naming rights are also available for brands that want deeper editorial integration.

Q: What is prime time on Times Network and how does it affect advertising rates?

Prime time on Times Network channels is broadly the 7 PM to 11 PM window, when flagship news and analysis programmes air and viewership peaks; the morning window from 7 AM to 10 AM is also considered premium, particularly on ET Now. Prime time advertising rates are typically two to three times higher than non-prime time rates for equivalent spot durations. The higher rates reflect both the higher viewership and the higher competition for inventory — prime time slots on Times Now, particularly around flagship debate programmes, are among the most sought-after in English news television. RODP buying, which distributes spots across the broadcast day, is the most economical approach for campaigns where prime time placement is not essential.

Q: How do I book an advertisement on The Times Network in India?

Booking can be done directly through The Times Network's sales team or through a media buying agency. The process involves submitting a media plan specifying channels, time bands, formats, campaign duration, and target GRPs; receiving availability and rate confirmation from the network; finalising the creative materials in the network's technical specifications; and completing the booking with a purchase order and advance payment. Working through an agency like SmartAds typically results in better rates, more efficient inventory selection, and a smoother creative submission process, particularly for first-time Times Network advertisers.

Q: Who is the target audience of Times Network and why is it valuable for advertisers?

The Times Network's core audience is the urban, English-comfortable, economically active Indian consumer — BARC's CS AB classification — concentrated in metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru and in Tier 1 cities across India.