Ownership & Funding

A reader deciding whether to trust a story about a film’s collections, a selection call, or a handset launch is entitled to know who pays for the reporting. This page answers that in ordinary language. Last updated: August 2026.

Who publishes Cover365

Cover365 is published by a privately held company registered at the publisher’s place of business and owned by the founding editorial team. The people who own this site are the people who run the desk. There is no parent group above us, no media house whose other interests we have to be careful around, and no outside shareholder with a board seat or a veto.

We do not print the founders’ names here for a practical reason. Reporters covering studios, boards, and brands attract pressure, and we would rather it arrive at the desk than at somebody’s home. The editors are reachable and answerable at the single address on our contact page. If ownership changes hands, in whole or in part, this page will say so before the change takes effect.

No state money, no party, no industry stake

Cover365 takes no funding from any government, agency, or public body, in India or anywhere else, whether as a grant, a subsidy, or advertising placed through a state agency. We are not affiliated with a political party, a party-aligned trust, a candidate, or any organisation campaigning for them, and we take no money from them in any form, including advertising during election periods.

Nobody with an ownership interest here holds a stake in a film production, distribution, or exhibition business, a cricket franchise, a player-management or talent agency, a handset or telecom brand, or a public relations firm. Those are the industries we cover most closely, so the exclusion is deliberate rather than incidental. No trade body, studio, league, or brand has ever held equity or an option over any part of this company.

Where the money comes from

Advertising is the primary revenue stream and, most months, effectively all of it. It arrives two ways: display campaigns sold directly by our business side, and programmatic demand filled through the exchanges that handle the rest of our inventory. Newsletter sponsorship and clearly labelled sponsored articles sit inside the same commercial arrangement, and the rules governing them are published on our advertising page rather than kept in a sales deck.

Two smaller streams may appear. Where a technology or shopping-adjacent article links to a retailer and that link can earn us a commission, the article carries a disclosure at the top, and the writer’s assessment is finished before any link is added. Where another publication licenses a piece or a photograph from us, that is a syndication fee and it buys no say in what we cover next.

We take no reader payments at present. If we ever ask for reader support, nothing moves behind a paywall, the site stays free, and the arrangement gets described here first.

How advertising is kept out of editorial decisions

The commercial side does not attend the morning list meeting and does not see stories before publication. Editors are not told which advertiser is booked in which week, which removes the temptation to be helpful without anyone having to be virtuous about it. Commissioning budgets are set for the quarter and are not adjusted according to which beat is selling.

Advertisers cannot buy adjacency to positive coverage of themselves, cannot block their name from appearing beside critical reporting about themselves, and cannot see or approve copy. When an advertiser becomes the subject of a story, it runs without prior warning to them and discloses the commercial relationship. If a brand pulls spend over coverage, that is their prerogative and it changes nothing about the piece. It has happened. The sourcing rules underneath all of this are in our editorial standards, and the reasoning is on our about page.

Grants, donations, and money we would turn down

We have not accepted grants or donations. If that changes, any single grant, donation, or fellowship worth more than a small fraction of our annual revenue will be named here, with the funder, the amount range, the period covered, and any conditions attached. Anonymous contributions above a nominal amount are not accepted at all, because a funder we cannot name is a funder we cannot be held to.

Money is refused when it comes from a subject we cover or expect to cover, when it is conditional on covering a topic a particular way, or when it arrives through an intermediary who will not identify the ultimate source. We do not crowdfund specific investigations, since a story paid for by people who want a particular outcome is compromised before it is written.

Conflicts of interest

Editors and staff reporters do not hold shares in companies on their beat, do not take paid work from studios, franchises, agencies, boards, or brands they cover, and do not accept paid travel, hospitality, or gifts from them. Review units are returned. We buy our own tickets when a press screening comes with conditions attached. Freelance contributors must disclose publicity, consulting, or brand work before they file, and anyone doing that work for a company is not commissioned to write about it.