India is the only market in Asia that we' ve exited: Mark Whitehead

Interview with Senior VP, GM, BBC Worldwide Channels, Asia

BBC Entertainment and CBeebies stopped operations on Saturday. The move comes at a time when India is at the cusp of digitisation. Mark Whitehead, senior VP, GM, at BBC Worldwide Channels, Asia, explained the reason behind pulling out of India in this interview with Gaurav Laghate. Edited excerpts.

BBC Entertainment had big plans for the Indian market. Earlier this year, the whole channel was given a new look. What went wrong?
The decision to withdraw BBC Entertainment and CBeebies has not been an easy one; India is a dynamic and fast growing media market but remains uniquely challenging for us, and other pay TV channels. The economics of running our channels made it very challenging. Among some of the reasons were delays in digitisation and the need for channel operators to pay fees to cable platforms.

 

What will happen of the teams working on these channels?
The company will absorb almost 60 per cent of the workforce into other BBC businesses.

What kind of investment BBC has made in India over the years, and if you can give a sense of the losses incurred?
Unfortunately, we are unable to disclose business information.

There is an overall cost re-structuring exercise at BBC. Was the decision of exiting from India a part of that?
No, the re-structuring exercise is undertaken in-house, and has nothing to do with BBC Worldwide’s decision to exit the non-new pay TV channels business in India.

Unlike competition, BBC Entertainment offered three genres — entertainment, factual and lifestyle. What happened suddenly?
The decision to withdraw has nothing to do with the quality of our programming. The reason was the economics of running our channels.

Is BBC Worldwide exiting other markets in Asia or other countries too?
India is the only market in Asia that BBC Worldwide Channels has exited.

Is there a chance of BBC would re-enter India when digitisation is complete?
We believe India is an exciting market and in the event of significant changes to our business and the Indian pay TV market, we would hope to return with our non-news channels.