YouTube is now India's "prime-time screen", where "internet authenticity meets cinematic quality on the largest canvas in the home", Gunjan Soni, Country Managing Director, YouTube, said at an industry event.Soni said YouTube has "collapsed the distance between different video formats and different entertainment ecosystems, bringing them all onto India's largest screen" and is scaling its Connected TV (CTV) presence through "a fluid multi-format viewer journey with a completely diversified slate of premium content."Also Read: Advertisers bet on movie stars to stand out in IPL 2026 seasonAccording to YouTube, CTV is its fastest-growing screen in India and reaches more than 75 million adults in the country.Highlighting the platform's commerce ambitions, Soni said the "content-to-commerce flywheel is already taking off in a big way in India."According to YouTube, more than 200 million logged-in users searched for shopping content on the platform last year."Our unique approach relies on turbocharging the existing user needs and their trust in creators' recommendations," Soni said.She said India's creative economy has matured into "a vital macroeconomic pillar that drives national GDP while actively reshaping global pop culture in real time.""India represents the blueprint for how a digital creator economy achieves institutional scale," Soni said.Also Read: Gen Z is bringing audiences back to cinemas, says PVR InoxOn the media and entertainment sector, Soni said YouTube has always been "an indispensable, collaborative growth partner" for media and entertainment companies."The shift of audiences toward Connected TV and the deepening fandom on YouTube is a massive opportunity to expand the entire commercial pie and give premium entertainment content a highly profitable, multi-layered lifecycle," she said.On sports, Soni said, "YouTube owns the high-intent sports conversation 365 days a year, much before the match begins and long after the final whistle blows."According to YouTube, views on cricket-related content on the platform reached 190 billion in 2025.Calling YouTube the "infinite stadium" for fandom, Soni said the platform connects "deep, creator-led storytelling with official global partnerships to capture every layer of fan passion