BBC throwing 11,000 recipes in the bin

beh · 17 May 2016 at 11:10

this_is_gav said:
I wonder if there are license fees to be paid for some of the "star" recipes, in which case the savings could be substantial

Was also thinking this, they probably don't own some of the recipes.

Puzzled · 17 May 2016 at 11:22

I'd have thought with the government's drive for healthier living that they'd fully support free to access recipes.

I know not all the recipes are healthy but teaching people what is actually going in to these meals must be a good thing.

Dj_Jestar · 17 May 2016 at 11:23

dowie said:
Seems they'd have to be quite inefficient if an archive - which surely doesn't require much more than simply hosting some text/pictures and updating the thing, can represent any from of meaningful saving. Seems completely mad, not to mention that this sort of thing probably is more in line with the whole 'public service' side of things.

have you got anything substantial to show this apparent link in this case? That the commercial sector/govt wanted the BBC to cut these recipes and so they did it?

Yup.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/17/online-recipes-off-the-menu-of-slimmed-down-bbc

The broadcaster has agreed to archive 11,000 recipes from its website as part of savings intended to stop it competing with newspapers

Tuesday’s announcement comes after a bruising battle with the government over the BBC’s market impact, which resulted in last week’s white paper. Although it was widely considered to be better than expected for the BBC, the corporation is responding to comments made by George Osborne, the chancellor, last summer in which he said the BBC was being “imperial in its ambitions” by expanding into content such as recipes.

Andr3w · 17 May 2016 at 11:55

Oh man this is really annoying, I use the BBC good food website nearly every single night!

this_is_gav · 17 May 2016 at 11:59

Andr3w said:
Oh man this is really annoying, I use the BBC good food website nearly every single night!

The Good Food website is apparently unaffected by this.

dowie · 17 May 2016 at 12:01

Dj_Jestar said:
Yup.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/17/online-recipes-off-the-menu-of-slimmed-down-bbc

that is ridiculous

granted I see no public service value in them say bidding against ITV to compete for who gets to show 'The Voice'... what public service is provided there if they're spending license payers money on a show that will be made if they weren't bidding anyway?

But food recipes - that is useful factual information. Ridiculous complaint by newspapers.

Pho · 17 May 2016 at 12:16

Em3bbs said:
In that case programmes should never disappear from iPlayer too? Who is going to fund all of this?

They shouldn't. If you pay for a license fee the back catalogue should be available in my opinion - a bit like how channel 4 does it. I read the other day they're planning on creating "BritFlix" in co-operation with ITV where you can pay an additional subscription to access content from iPlayer over 30 days. There were talks of putting unique shows on there too.

I imagine that will be the day I drop my TV license

.

Akagi · 17 May 2016 at 12:20

So they are deleting content that already exists in order to save money? :rolleyes:

Right OK...

SMN · 17 May 2016 at 12:28

Copy the website and rebrand it overcookers.co.uk?

physichull · 17 May 2016 at 12:44

C.R.A.Z.Y said:
How much space and bandwidth can 11k of recipes actually use?? It's mostly text and a few pics ??
I really struggle to see how any sort of significant money is going to be saved by ditching them

Pretty much my thoughts, mystifying.

MarcLister · 17 May 2016 at 12:52

Monkeynut said:
This just shows how **** newspapers are if they need to destroy the BBC to compete with it. They're recipes ffs.

Yeah but all the tabloids are like filled cover to cover with recipes innit? :rolleyes:

Complete and utter codswallop decision.

Combat squirrel · 17 May 2016 at 12:53

The reason is because Camerons mates want to launch paid for recipe sites, outlined here:

http://linkis.com/wordpress.com/cJc15

They made the government get rid of the only 'free' competitor

taste.co.uk is registered to Sainsbury’s Supermarkets ltd and is waiting to launch.

bestrecipes.co.uk is also awaiting launch as a website and mobile phone app. It is registered to Scottish millionaire Richard Emanuel (living in tax exile in Monaco).

recipes.co.uk is registered to Mark Singleton (an entrepreneur famous for pet websites). The website and mobile app is due to launch this year.

bestrecipes and taste are also the two largest recipe websites and mobile phone apps in Australia and provide massive ad revenues to their owner.

Both are owned by Rupert Murdoch.

antijoke · 17 May 2016 at 12:55

#TheGreatBritishTakeOff

:mad:

Bunka · 17 May 2016 at 13:04

I've no idea if this will make a difference but signed it anyway.

Petition link: https://www.change.org/p/bbc-save-the-bbc-s-recipe-archive

*edit* Number of people signing the petition is about 300 per page refresh. :eek:

Dr Jack · 17 May 2016 at 13:09

Tories gonna Tory.

Cosimo · 17 May 2016 at 13:11

It's quite a large saving and not just recipes going:

This Online Creative Review sets out a route to a more focused and distinctive service. By cutting back the spread of websites, apps and other operations it will deliver a total saving of more than £15 million, or 15 per cent of the service’s editorial spend.

In the next 12 months the following services will either be closed or scaled down, subject to any regulatory approval required. We will:

Close the iWonder service, but redeploy its formats across BBC Online
Close the BBC’s Food website. BBC Worldwide’s Good Food site will remain
Focus on distinctive long-form journalism online under a Current Affairs banner and close the online News Magazine
Integrate Newsbeat output into BBC News Online, but close the separate Newsbeat site and app
Continue to offer travel news online as part of BBC News but close the Travel site and halt development of the Travel app
Stop running local news index web pages, offering instead an open stream on our rolling guide to BBC and local news provider stories, ‘Local Live’
Remove ring-fenced funding for iPlayer-only commissions
Reduce funding for Connected Studio, the digital innovation programme, with innovation increasingly funded within business-as-usual and the Studio maintained as an enabler of innovation
Reduce digital radio and music social media activity and additional programme content that is not core to services

From here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2016/online-creative-review

Of course they still don't tell us how much the whole online part of the Beeb costs. Anyone know?

Tom_ed1987 · 17 May 2016 at 13:29

Just to clarify, are they actually proposing to remove them from the website completely, or just to cease updating? I don't understand how the former can be justified or how it will result in any meaningful saving.

divuk83 · 17 May 2016 at 13:48

Integrate Newsbeat output into BBC News Online, but close the separate Newsbeat site and app

Just integrate Newsbeat with CBeebies, no major loss there.

Gutted about the recipes, I always use BBC for ideas. They archive all news stuff, why not other things? Maybe just scrap a lot of the video content from the food bit?

Dave

roadie · 17 May 2016 at 13:52

Horrible Conservative government.

Werewolf · 17 May 2016 at 13:59

dowie said:
Seems they'd have to be quite inefficient if an archive - which surely doesn't require much more than simply hosting some text/pictures and updating the thing, can represent any from of meaningful saving. Seems completely mad, not to mention that this sort of thing probably is more in line with the whole 'public service' side of things.

have you got anything substantial to show this apparent link in this case? That the commercial sector/govt wanted the BBC to cut these recipes and so they did it?

You can look at the complaints about the BBC hindering the commercial sector going back years, the more recent complaints about the BBC being to popular and doing stuff "best left to the commercial sector"..
The history of the BBC being forced to shut services after complaints from commercial companies (who then didn't offer anything comparable*).

It's one of those things where it doesn't take a genius to work out that if the BBC is being forced to make cost savings (IIRC they've had a real terms funding cut of over 20% in the last few years**), then the services that are likely to face the axe first are the ones where there is supposedly a commercial alternative.

If the recipes are taken down completely as opposed to just mothballed, I'm going to miss them, as they're often easier to find and better than the versions in cookery books and as they're intended for a UK user base they normally give you ingredients under the UK names that are easily available here (as opposed to say a name that might mean something instantly to an American, but mean nothing to a Brit).

*IIRC it was the text and revision book companies who basically campaigned (sucessfully) for the BBC to shut down/stop updating one of the best educational resources on the internet for people doing GCSE's.

**A combination of a funding freeze, being tasked with funding services that used to be paid for by the government, the over 75's licences (which is going to be a big one in the next few years), and money being diverted away from the BBC to pay for commercial initiatives.