Updated 19.45
IN SOMETHING OF a climbdown, the BBC has announced that it is planning to keep its collection of recipes after all.
Earlier today the news broke that the broadcaster was set to axe its food website following a shake-up in the way that the corporation is operated.
The section carries more than 11,000 recipes drawn in large part from the broadcaster’s cooking programmes.
Now, following a huge public outcry including a petition signed by over 135,000 people calling for the recipes to be saved, the Guardian reports that the corporation will now accelerate its moving of its recipe content from the BBC Food website to the BBC Good Food site, which is owned by the broadcaster’s commercial arm..
This means that the recipes will remain easy to find via Google searches.
“In response to the massive public reaction, we have decided to accelerate our plans to move our content,” a source told the Guardian.
People won’t lose the recipes they love.
30 days
Earlier it was announced that tv show recipes would still be listed on the website – but only for 30 days.
Opposition culture secretary Maria Eagle described the move as “mindless destruction”.
In an article the corporation has said that the move has come to facilitate £15 million (€19.2 million) worth of cuts, something that it aims to do by cutting back on magazine-style content as well as local news.
Staff across the service are expected to be briefed later today about the future of the broadcaster’s online service and its television output.
What will be left?
The BBC’s Food website is a big favourite of cooking enthusiasts, thanks to its easy searchability and wide range of recipes.
As anyone who has spent any time using it might have noticed, recipes are listed either on the BBC Food website or the BBC Good Food website.
BBC Good Food is bundled in with commercial service BBC Worldwide, and it is possible that after the BBC Food closes the recipes could be moved across to this for-profit platform – although this hasn’t been confirmed.
All of this has come as a result of a white paper published last week that will redefine how the broadcaster operates.
Speaking last year, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said that the service had moved towards becoming “the national newspaper, as well as the national broadcaster” – and that it had become “a bit more imperial in its ambitions”.
In the foreword to the white paper, the UK’s Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has said that the changes are about ensuring that the service has a “bold, strong and stable decade ahead”.
Additional reporting Cianan Brennan
Originally published 10.04am
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