Inside Swastik’s roadmap to reach 90% CTV households through FAST channel

Free Ad-supported Streaming TV (FAST) channels market globally is projected to hit $18.8 billion by 2030, according to an Amagi report. Striving to be a part of this growth, Swastik Stories is placing a long bet on culture-led storytelling. Last month, the 18-year-old creative studio launched India’s first cultural storytelling & entertainment FAST channel, signalling its ambition to build a large-scale, purpose-driven content destination for the CTV era.

Known for popular mythological and historical series such as Porusand Chandragupta Maurya, Swastik Stories is now targeting 90% penetration of CTV households by March 2026, positioning FAST as a key driver of its next phase of growth.

Today, Swastik’s IPs already reach over 10 million followers across YouTube, Instagram and Meta. With the addition of FAST distribution, its potential cumulative reach expands immediately to nearly 50 million viewers, offering the production house a significant opportunity to scale its content and audience footprint.

Siddharth Kumar Tewary, founder and creative visionary of Swastik Stories, says the FAST channel is designed to reach “every screen, every home and every viewer who is seeking meaning and connection in the stories of our past, told in a voice that belongs to the present.”

“For the last 18 years, we have been building cultural IPs with the purpose of connecting Indians across the world to their roots,” says Tewary.

“This is not about launching another distribution platform. It’s about building a long-term cultural storytelling ecosystem where our stories travel seamlessly across touchpoints.”

According to Tewary, FAST plays a central role in that ecosystem. “From a consumer standpoint, viewing behaviour has fundamentally changed, and FAST fits naturally into this shift. For creators, it preserves the strength of linear storytelling with scheduled programming, habitual viewing and a sustainable economic model, while offering the flexibility of digital,” he explains.

The ambition to reach 90% of CTV households, Tewary says, is firmly content-led. “The only sustainable way to scale at that level is by telling culturally rooted, high-quality stories that audiences choose to watch and return to. Strong IP drives reach, recall and loyalty.”

While content discoverability in a crowded FAST environment and uneven CTV penetration beyond metros remain challenges, Tewary views these as design problems rather than roadblocks. “With storytelling excellence, smart distribution and consistent IP creation, we believe 90% of CTV reach is both achievable and sustainable,” he adds.

Swastik Stories follows a ‘build once, monetise many times’ strategy, investing aggressively in original IP and extending it across formats, platforms and geographies. “A single idea today isn’t confined to one platform. It can travel across FAST, linear TV, digital and international markets, creating both cultural impact and commercial value,” says Tewary.

Over the coming months, the studio will roll out a slate of originals, including Ride to Roots, Vikram Vetaland Krishna Within. Each title approaches Indian stories through a contemporary lens while remaining deeply anchored in cultural ethos. This steady pipeline, Tewary says, is critical to sustaining discovery and engagement on CTV.

In September, Swastik Productions rebranded itself as Swastik Stories, marking the formal shift towards building an integrated cultural storytelling ecosystem. The FAST channel represents the first phase of this transformation, focused on digital accessibility and cultural reach. It is currently available on several platforms, including JioTV, LG, Xiaomi TV and RunnTV.

Hamara Vinayakwas the channel’s first original series and streams weekly on both Swastik Stories’ official YouTube channel and the FAST network. The show was sponsored by 1 Finance. Tewary says this collaboration demonstrated how brands can become meaningful enablers of storytelling rather than just advertisers.

“We see strong potential in select brand collaborations and branded originals, where the partnership is driven by a shared value system rather than pure media buying. Going forward, we will continue to work with carefully chosen partners who find genuine meaning in our IPs and our purpose. For us, every revenue stream must strengthen the story ecosystem, not dilute it,” he says.

Alongside originals, the channel will also tap into Swastik’s 18-year content library, streaming legacy titles such as Mahabharat, RadhaKrishnand Shrimad Ramayan. Tewary says the FAST channel offers advertisers access to premium, brand-safe, purpose-led Indian storytelling with proven, multi-generational IPs. 

“Brands are not just buying impressions here; they’re entering a space of trust, values and emotional connection,” he says. “That’s especially relevant for categories like FMCG, BFSI, healthcare, auto, real estate and lifestyle, where long-term brand building matters. For us, the ideal advertiser is one who sees our platform not just as a media inventory, but as a space to build relevance, resonance and responsibility through storytelling.”

He adds that the FAST channel addresses a key gap in the CTV ecosystem—the lack of a large-scale, culturally rooted, premium content destination.

“As brands shift budgets to CTV, they’re looking for uncluttered environments that deliver mass reach without the volatility of UGC or the cost barriers of subscription platforms.”

Looking ahead, Swastik Stories is working on a five-year vision to build a multi-format cultural storytelling ecosystem. Its IPs will span films, stage, domes, audio, animation, live experiences and the forthcoming Bharatverse app, a dedicated universe of Indian characters and stories. 

In the near term, the studio will launch its first original audio story for children, followed by a digital non-fiction reality series, with stage and live theatre also forming a key pillar of the roadmap.

“The journey is decisively towards becoming a strong direct-to-consumer ecosystem,” says Tewary. “Storytelling today isn’t confined to one screen or one format. We’re building an ownable, IP-led universe that audiences can engage with across formats and generations.”