BBC has transferred its newsroom publishing licence in India to a private limited company, Collective Newsroom, marking a first in the public service broadcaster’s global operations. This transition comes a year after the Income Tax department conducted searches at BBC’s offices.
Collective Newsroom, a wholly Indian-based company established by four ex-BBC employees, will initiate operations from April 10. It will generate content for BBC’s digital services in seven languages including English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu.
According to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Collective Newsroom Private Limited was incorporated on October 27, 2020. Rupa Jha, the CEO of Collective Newsroom, told The Indian Express that while BBC is their first client, they are not exclusively signed up with them.
She assured that the content produced will adhere to BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and uphold the trust in the BBC brand. “It’s unprecedented for the BBC to grant their license to publish to another entity… We will not compromise our journalism and the BBC is solidly behind us,” she said.
The restructuring was a response to the new Foreign Direct Investment rules introduced in 2020, imposing a 26 per cent FDI limit in India’s digital media sector.
BBC, having sought a 26 per cent stake in Collective Newsroom, had to reduce its foreign investment to comply with this regulation by October 2021. Rupa Jha emphasized that this solution was chosen to maintain BBC’s presence in India without cutting jobs or becoming financially unviable.
“There were a number of options before us. Considering that the BBC didn’t want to lose its presence in India or cut jobs, and they didn’t want to become financially unviable, this forced us to think out of the box. Based on the legal advice the BBC was receiving, everyone was veering towards this as the viable option (of setting up the Collective),” Jha explained.
Rules on FDI in digital media entities
The Commerce Ministry in September 2019 decided to “liberalise the FDI regime for entities engaged in the News Digital Media Sector”. Due to this, such entities that are engaged in news digital media sector have been allowed a foreign direct investment of upto 26 per cent through government approval route.
As per the Commerce Ministry, the digital news media outlets seeking FDI approval need to meet some conditions. These conditions are:
Majority of directors on the company’s board and the CEO of the company have to be of Indian origin
Entity required to get security clearance for foreign personnel likely to be deployed for more than 60 days in a year by way of appointment, contract or consultancy or in any other capacity for functioning before their deployment
If their security clearance gets rejected or withdrawn, the entity shall ensure the concerned person tenders their resignation or their services are terminated soon after receiving such directives from the government
I-T raids at BBC’s India premises
In February 2023, BBC’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai were searched by the income tax department days after it aired a documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alleged role in the same.
