The appointment of Rupert Murdoch's son was made against the wishes of institutional investors last year, who did not want to see father and son as chairman and CEO respectively.
The two independents include Nicholas Ferguson, chief executive officer of SVG Capital, a publicly quoted private equity group and a former chairman of Schroder Ventures.
The second appointment is that of Andy Higginson, the finance and strategy chief at Tesco.
In a statement, BSkyB said that the appointments follows a review by its corporate governance committee, chaired by Lord Wilson of Dinton, which made a number of recommendations including that independent non-executive directors be in a majority on the board.
BSkyB said that its audit committee and remuneration committee will also be composed entirely of independent non-executive directors.
Higginson will join the audit committee and Ferguson the remuneration committee, which is chaired by Royal Mail chairman Allan Leighton, and from which Rupert Murdoch has resigned.
The move was welcomed by the Association of British Insurers, which said it was glad that BSkyB recognised that it should not remain at loggerheads with leading institutions.
Peter Montagnon, a spokesman for the ABI, told Reuters: "The new corporate governance policy is therefore welcome, but we will need a while to assess its implications as well as the operation of the new board."
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