BBC to discontinue two branded channels in India

BBC World News will remain available in the market. Mark Whitehead, senior vice-president and general manager, BBC Worldwide Channels Asia, confirmed the decision. Staff were notified late today. 

"India is a dynamic and fast-growing media market but remains uniquely challenging for pay TV channels," Whitehead said. "Specifically, delays in digitisation and the need for channel operators to pay cable platforms for carriage makes the economics of running channels very challenging at this time."

Whitehead noted that BBC World News, bbc.com, bbchindi.com, and BBC Hindi radio will all continue to operate in India. In addition, Global India, a new primetime programme produced by BBC Hindi TV is set to launch on five ETV channels this week. BBC Worldwide also operates a TV production business, a content syndication business and Lonely Planet in India. The BBC is evaluating other digital initiatives, and BBC programmes will also continue to be available on other channels in India.

The company said it will try to absorb staff into other divisions, but did not detail how many will be affected.

BBC Worldwide launched BBC Entertainment (featuring British drama and comedy) and CBeebies (featuring British children’s programmes) in May 2007. The two alternated 12-hour slots on one channel before becoming standalone channels in June 2009 when BBC Worldwide Channels made the pan-Asian feeds of CBeebies and BBC Entertainment available in India. The company relaunched a dedicated BBC Entertainment channel in India in January 2011.

BBC Entertainment is available in Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand. CBeebies is available in Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.