BBC names Harsha Subramaniam as regional director South Asia

London: The BBC has found a familiar face to steer its South Asia story. The public broadcaster has appointed Harsha Subramaniam as regional director for South Asia, placing the veteran media executive in charge of editorial content and business operations across one of its fastest-growing markets.

In the new role, Subramaniam will oversee the BBC’s output across South Asia, including the BBC World Service’s multiple language services. His appointment comes as the broadcaster continues to expand its footprint in the region, where it reached an average weekly audience of 109 million people last year, up 14 per cent year on year.

Speaking on his appointment, Harsha Subramaniam said, “I have long admired the BBC’s editorial values, its global reach across multiple languages and its position as the world’s most trusted broadcaster. South Asia, with its dynamic and diverse culture, presents an exciting growth opportunity for the BBC. I’m honoured to lead the BBC’s presence in the region, and I look forward to working closely with our talented colleagues here.”

Subramaniam joins the BBC after serving as head of partnerships for India at TollBit, where he spent the past year working on artificial intelligence and its impact on news publishers. In a LinkedIn post last week, he announced his departure from the company, saying he was stepping down to pursue a leadership opportunity in the news industry.

During his tenure at TollBit, the company onboarded more than 200 Indian news websites onto its platform.

Before joining TollBit, Subramaniam spent over five years at Meta in a series of leadership roles. He most recently served as head of global content strategy, overseeing programmes for early-stage creators worldwide. Earlier, he led communities and scaled partnerships in India, helped drive adoption of Reels, Threads and creator initiatives, and previously headed Meta’s news partnerships business in India, working closely with publishers on content, monetisation and digital transformation.

His media career spans more than two decades. Between 2010 and 2019, he was executive producer and head of India partnerships at Bloomberg, where he led the launch of BloombergQuint and managed the company’s editorial and business partnerships in the country.

Earlier, he served as news editor and anchor at CNBC-TV18, where he led editorial teams and hosted business news programmes, before beginning his broadcast leadership journey as chief of bureau at Star TV Network in Chennai.

Subramaniam also holds a BBC Certificate in Broadcast Journalism from the Asian College of Journalism and has completed a media management programme at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.

His appointment comes at a time when the BBC is sharpening its focus on multilingual journalism and digital growth across South Asia, with the broadcaster looking to build on its expanding audience in one of the world’s most competitive media markets.