Head of Growth & Audience, BBC Indian Languages

Job Purpose

The Head of Growth & Audience will spearhead the growth agenda across our Indian-languages digital news operation under the BBC brand, driving increases in audience reach, engagement and sustainable revenue streams across digital platforms. Operating within the Collective Newsroom (CNR) framework, the role focuses on leveraging innovative strategies in digital marketing, partnerships and data analytics to grow BBC's presence among India's internet usersparticularly young, women, regional and multilingual audienceswhile rigorously safeguarding the BBC's global reputation for impartial, high-quality journalism.

BBC Indian Languages Services, delivered through CNR, reach over 70 million people weekly via websites, YouTube, social media and TV partners. These services emphasise trusted, localised content in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi and Urdu. Head of Growth & Audience will align growth initiatives with BBC's editorial values, ensuring expansion enhances credibility and fosters long-term loyalty without commercial pressures undermining independence. Head of Growth & Audience will lead growth strategy, partner across editorial, product, marketing, business development and technology and build a high-performance growth organisation.

Who We Are

From April 2024, the majority of the BBC's Indian operations moved to the Collective Newsroom which has been set up by some of the BBC's most experienced journalists in India. It has more than 250 journalists and operational staff, bringing you distinctive, impartial and world-class content and is the BBC's sole provider of content for its Indian language websites and social media platforms including English. Based in the BBC's largest international market, we bring you the best of Indian journalism guided by the world's biggest and most reputable news organisation. We provide digital, audio and television content in Bangla, Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Urdu as well as English.

Our Vision:

Our Mission:

We are an equal-opportunity employer, that strongly supports diversity and inclusion at the workplace, and encourages female candidates and persons from other diverse groups such as marginalised, under-privileged communities and differently-abled people, to apply.
To know more about us, visit our website: https://collectivenewsroom.com/
Key Responsibilities & Accountabilities

• Design and lead holistic growth strategies for digital platforms (web, app, video, social), targeting audience expansion, brand authority and new revenue streams.
  
• Identify and capture new market segments and audience cohorts, with emphasis on young, diverse, regional and underserved groups.
  
• Orchestrate innovation in digital storytelling, distribution and product development for Hindi, Bangla, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and emerging language properties.
  
• Oversee performance marketing, partnerships, content syndication and audience development functions.
  
• Instill and enforce rigorous brand reputation management, ensuring all growth initiatives align with BBC's editorial values of accuracy, impartiality and trust.
  
• Oversee data-driven initiatives, including audience analytics, competitor intelligence, A/B testing and predictive modeling, to optimise content personalisation, SEO and social media campaigns while monitoring KPIs.
  
• Foster cross-team collaboration between editorial, product, technology, marketing, partnerships and advertising.
  
• Build and empower a high-performing growth, marketing and audience engagement team.
  
• Look for reach growth initiatives: identify alliances & revenue opportunities and open up new monetisation options while respecting BBC's guidelines.
  
• Identify and pursue strategic partnerships with Indian tech giants (e.g., Jio, Google), regional media outlets and influencers to expand distribution channels and co-create content, ensuring all collaborations uphold BBC's impartiality standards.
  
• Report directly to leadership; present clear growth plans and results to stakeholders.
  
• Monitor market trends, competitor landscapes and regulatory changes in India's media ecosystem to proactively adapt strategies.
  
• Act as a key advisor to CNR leadership on growth-related decisions, reporting progress against targets and providing insights to inform editorial and investment priorities.
  
• Champion diversity and inclusion in growth initiatives, ensuring strategies amplify underrepresented voices and promote equitable access to BBC content.
  
• Identify market opportunities: new languages/regions, new platforms (mobile, OTT, voice), emerging formats (short-form video, reels, podcasts) and new monetisation models.
  
• Monitor competitor and platform ecosystem trends (social, search, apps) in India's vernacular digital news space; adapt accordingly.
  

Requirements
Knowledge, Skills, Training and Experience