BBC to drop online recipes because John Whittingdale doesn’t want it to compete with newspapers
![Recipes by TV chefs such as Nigella Lawson, James Martin and Mary Berry will be removed from the BBC website [Image: Getty/BBC].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/160517-BBC-recipes-dropped.png)
Recipes by TV chefs such as Nigella Lawson, James Martin and Mary Berry will be removed from the BBC website [Image: Getty/BBC].
We all know the answer to that, of course.
Tories like competition that enables a race to the bottom – the lowest standard of content possible, for the highest possible profit. The BBC jeopardises that because it offers a high standard as a publicly-funded service.
So now, people will be asked to shell out their shillings for food tips they’ve already funded via the BBC.
John Whittingdale thinks that’s fair.
Here’s what one Twitter user thinks of it:
“*hittingdale removing the BBC recipes is like a drunk slapping a bag of chips out your hand for no reason other than the fact he’s a twat.”
Approximately 11,000 online recipes are to be dropped following a review of the BBC’s online output that promises to save £15m a year by cutting back on magazine-style content as well as local news.
The broadcaster has agreed to archive 11,000 recipes from its website as part of savings intended to stop it competing with newspapers
The recipes are being “archived or mothballed”, a source said, and will “fall off the face of the internet” after the food site is closed, with no live links.
The broadcaster will archive the recipes on its food site although recipes from television shows will remain online for a 30-day period after transmission and the plans will not affect commercial services such as BBC Good Food. Other text-based online offerings are also expected to be hit. A number of travel articles are also expected to be taken offline.
Although the recipes will still exist online they will be hard to find. One BBC source said: “The website will be closed and viewers will have to make a concerted effort to access the archive.”
Source: BBC to drop online recipes as part of slimmed-down website | Media | The Guardian
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Well I don’t read newspapers and I don’t watch TV, used to use their recipes but no more apparently!
Just means the BBC and the government have removed all reasons to interact with the BBC.
So Bye Bye BBC!
That would have been their intention, of course.
This seems an excellent idea. It is on similar lines as the new direction for BBC TV. It does seem unreasonable that the BBC should attempt to compete with commercial TV at peak times. They have huge funds to be able to make programs with no thought of the cost. It is unfair to pitch them against commercial companies who have cost constraints. In any other market that would not be permitted. The BBC has a long history of wasting money. I was in the BBC broadcasting house on Sunday afternoon and I am pleased to see that cost cutting is having effects. There used to be a huge shop there a few years ago with several assistants and only ever a handful of customers. Now the shop is just a wall display with a cash register next to the café.The online shop is closing or maybe has closed.
I worked there in the 1970s across the road in what is now the Langham Hotel and used to lunch on the top floor of Broadcasting House. Wastage and bad money management was obvious. Some years later, when I had an IT business, I ran the BBC direct marketing database and the same was true. They paid us to do the most absurd mailings to their customer base and received almost no responses. We gave them advice about the problems, but they just carried on doing the same thing for years. The BBC is like an oil tanker that takes miles to slow down or change direction. Large parts just need shutting down.
Whoever buys newspapers for their recipe content?
It’s not that I read many BBC recipes; it’s the principal and I take this as a challenge. If the archive can still be found with “concerted effort” I will do my damnedest to find it. I didn’t think the Tories could get any pettier, but I was wrong.
There’s a petition on change to try to bring pressure on the government over this issue.
This is nothing new. The BBC reduced the budget for its internet services in 2012 under pressure from, Rupert Murdoch.
The BBC Trust agreed with him that it was unfair to competition, even though the Director General at the time was willing to share their servers to anyone who wouldn’t charge for the service.
4oD nearly ended up going that route.
This government is simply doing all it can to either control or kill off the BBC. It’s noticeable how bias the News is now. It’s more like a Chinese state run News agency.
Whittingdale ought to stick to sleazy strip clubs, which is probably as far as his culture goes.
Sounds like they are cooking the books to me!