What Shark Tank India reveals about building scalable IPs in OTT

When Shark Tank India premiered, it was far from a certainty in India’s crowded content landscape. The Shark Tank format, well-known in the U.S. and other global markets, arrived here without a clear reference point for advertisers or viewers. Over successive seasons, it caught audience attention and also shifted how advertisers view long-form entrepreneurial content on digital platforms. According to media reports, Season 4 of Shark Tank India recorded a 40 % surge in connected TV (CTV) viewership and a 22 % increase in overall engagement after moving to an exclusive streaming model on Sony LIV, alongside significant growth in Tier II markets. 

To understand how this transformation unfolded from an ad revenue and advertiser engagement perspective, we spoke with Ranjana Mangala, EVP & Head of Ad Revenue, Sony LIV. What emerges is a picture of risk, audience shifts, advertiser evolution, and the realities of building a dependable revenue property in an evolving OTT ecosystem.

Risk without a roadmap

Shark Tank India’s journey began with uncertainty. “Honestly, when you’re building something so new like Shark Tank, there’s really no previous benchmark to learn from,” Mangla said. The challenge was creative and commercial: would the format attract enough of the right audience to make advertisers take notice?

She recalled the early assessment: “Do we have enough reach as a platform? Do we have the right kind of audience cohorts at least at a good mix and can we bring in new ones?” With a portfolio that already included household titles like Kaun Banega Crorepati and Indian Idol, Sony LIV saw a potential intersection, human stories, but told through business pitches rather than talent showcases.

The timing added complexity. The industry was still reacting to pandemic-era shifts in content consumption, and there was no guarantee that audiences, or advertisers, would engage with a business-oriented reality format. Mangla pointed out, “brands always go wherever the audience is.”

From an ad revenue perspective, the response was swift and surprising.

“The first six or seven days were marked by criticism,” Mangala recalled. While initial reactions from critics and viewers were mixed as India tried to figure out the format, “What followed was a level of audience acceptance I haven’t seen in nearly two decades.”

That change in audience sentiment proved critical in reframing advertiser conversations.

Changing advertiser conversations

That rapid audience traction translated into evolving advertiser interest. Media reports suggest that Shark Tank India has become a platform where sponsors return across seasons, and ad rates have reportedly risen by 20-30 % amid strong advertiser demand.

In the early seasons, brands that came on board tended to be digital-native and experimentation-oriented, aware of the risks but seeking to connect with new cohorts.

“That has changed significantly in seasons four and five,” she noted, with brick-and-mortar businesses and category leaders with strong offline presence increasingly participating.

Regardless of background, the underlying motivation remained constant: “to place yourself in the middle of the purchase story.”

This season, OPPO and Canva have come on board as title sponsors. The show is also powered by Lahori Zeera and Adobe Acrobat. 

Investment and commercial leverage

As the show matured, so did the commercial structures around it. “Investments have definitely grown,” Mangla said. Beyond sponsorships, Shark Tank India now figures into larger campaign plans, particularly for brands with substantial quarterly spends targeting specific audience segments.

While success did not automatically translate into uniform advantages across Sony LIV’s entire content slate, it created greater opportunity to initiate conversations with brands. “Success gives you greater opportunity to go and tell your story, more brands are willing to have conversations with us,” she explained.

She shared that each show on Sony LIV is priced and positioned based on its individual nature and audience dynamics.

Repeat business matters as much as initial sign-ons, she added, “Our job doesn’t end when we sign a sponsor, our job begins there”. 

For advertisers, Shark Tank India offers a somewhat differentiated environment. she described it as “a far cleaner environment compared to many other associations,” with a limited number of sponsors reducing clutter and allowing deeper narrative alignment.

This contrasts with highly saturated sponsorship environments such as large sporting properties, where brand messages can dilute amid extensive inventory.

Yet the broader ecosystem remains complex. Brands today may prioritise device-agnostic audience engagement, selecting mixes of TV, connected TV, and mobile based on objective rather than instinct. “Content becomes a bigger filter than the device,” she said, emphasising that strong content often determines where advertisers ultimately place budget.

What makes an IP dependable?

Looking at Shark Tank India’s trajectory, Mangla said the core metric for advertisers remains audience relevance rather than sheer volume. “People watching, that’s the biggest metric. If you’re true to the narrative and can explain that clearly to advertisers, you can build a strong business model.”

Not every property needs a broad roster of advertisers; niche resonance with the right cohorts can be equally valuable. She pointed to categories like food and FMCG, where content relevance directly aligns with purchase intent.

At the end of the conversation, when asked what marquee properties like Shark Tank or Indian Idol bring to Sony LIV, her response was simple: “They bring viewers.” For advertisers, it is those viewers, and the context in which they engage, that ultimately determine whether a property becomes a dependable revenue generator.