
BBC 'to close recipes website' as part of £15m savings - iamflimflam1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36308976
======
eclw
Absolute vandalism. A public good has been built through a long term
investment, but because it cuts against the interest of the commercial backers
of a political party (commercial backers who have had every opportunity to
grow a similar, competing, asset), the asset is wilfully destroyed. The
politics of vandalism.

~~~
UVB-76
The recipes are likely to be archived, not removed.

Existing content is not being destroyed.

~~~
lewiseason
They haven't actually confirmed this.

> mostly likely become archived, not removed

That sounds very easy to backtrack on or interpret in some unintuitive way.

~~~
gerjomarty
The line going around is that recipes from new shows would be available for 30
days only, so I assume after the 30 days are up they would become unavailable.

------
austinjp
If I had the inclination I'd consider this plan of action:

1\. Scrape all recipes from the site.

2\. Wait until the large chunk of recipes has been removed.

3\. Scrape the site again, and work out which recipes have been removed.

4\. Throw up a domain and publish the recipes.

5\. Profit? Or satisfaction in keeping alive a great public resource.

~~~
chippy
> publish the recipes. > public resource

Copyrighted. You could do the above but you'd need to do so outside of the
law.

~~~
HarrietJones
Except that recipes are not covered by copyright.
[http://opensourcecook.com/recipes-copyright-
law](http://opensourcecook.com/recipes-copyright-law)

~~~
rwmj
Simple instructions aren't covered, but the exact wording not to mention
imagery, CSS, Javascript etc is very much covered by copyright.

~~~
loumf
IANAL and this isn't the US, but in the US, (I believe) things created with
public funds are in the public domain.

------
zeemonkee3
For point of reference, a chauffered driven car for the BBC chairman costed
£100,000 a year in 2011:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2011/05/ne...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2011/05/new_chairman_patten_rejects_bb.html)

I'm sure cutting a few layers of management and their associated perks would
yield more than enough savings compared to vandalising publicly-funded
content.

The real reason is here:

[http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/05/osborne-
accus...](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/05/osborne-accuses-bbc-
of-imperial-ambitions-and-calls-for-savings)

> You wouldn’t want the BBC to completely crowd out national newspapers

By this, George Osbourne means friends of the Tories like Paul Dacre and
Rupert Murdoch.

~~~
UVB-76
Similarly, rather than revealing the names of those the BBC pays more than
£450,000 pa [1], why doesn't the BBC just... stop paying people more than
£450,000?

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/12/government-
to-f...](http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/12/government-to-force-bbc-
to-declare-star-salaries)

------
chrisstu
The BBC is one of the great things about the UK. Unfortunately, it's
constantly being attacked, especially by the right wing media and Tory
politicians. The reality is that some things have to go, if only to placate
them. If it's BBC3 and a few bits of the website, then so be it. As long as
BBC2, BBC4, R3, R4 and the World Service remain, it's not the end of the
world.

~~~
dflock
Unfortunately, this ideological salami slicing doesn't magically stop when
only the parts you care about are left.

------
DanBC
Hope the internet Archive can grab these. Or that the BBC can send them to the
IA.

------
nextweek2
My initial reaction was one of horror, I prefer the recipes to others on the
internet.

However you have to understand the BBC is a monopoly which is giving things
away for free. That is stifling innovation because a new entrant has a high
barrier to entry. Ideally the BBC should bundle it all up and release it as
Creative Commons.

The void created will be filled, it won't use public money and will have to
innovate to survive.

I am very proud of the BBC, especially the news. Finding low bias news is
hard.

~~~
UVB-76
_> I am very proud of the BBC, especially the news. Finding low bias news is
hard._

Totally objective news reporting is virtually impossible, and BBC News
certainly has its biases.

~~~
lewiseason
Agreed. As somebody with different biases than the BBC, I often find it to be
quite biased indeed.

~~~
UVB-76
For those interested, a recent piece from the IEA on bias within the BBC, both
perceived and actual [1]

As always, if you don't perceive any bias, it's probably just because you have
the same biases.

[1]
[http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files...](http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/BBC%20Bias%20Chp%203.pdf)

~~~
lewiseason
Nothing shocking or groundbreaking, but an interesting read. Thanks!

------
UVB-76
The existing recipes will be archived and made available, either officially or
unofficially. That is not the issue.

The real issue is that, until this point, virtually every British household
has been forced (and enforced, by thousands of criminal convictions every
year) to fund a bland, outdated, unnecessary recipe website.

The BBC does not exist to provide generic content that pleases the masses. The
BBC should not be popular.

If a service is popular, it is likely commercially viable, and should not
therefore be subsidised by the license fee.

~~~
elthran
> The BBC does not exist to provide generic content that pleases the masses

The BBC produces Eastenders. I can't think of a better example of generic
content that pleases the masses. Then throw in all the late morning/early
afternoon programming targeted at older people such as Bargain Hunt and the
like

~~~
UVB-76
Indeed, there is plenty wrong with what the BBC has been doing.

------
chippy
What I think a few people are missing is that it's not the savings, it's a
potential revenue generating scheme. The BBC still has these recipes. The BBC
still creates cooking shows and produces new recipes.

The BBC can sell the recipes to their own or other publishing houses, papers,
and other companies around the world. For example: the article itself
describes how BBC Worldwide (The main commercial for profit subsidary) still
has their own recipe site.

~~~
beejiu
I think you are missing that fact that being a "potential revenue generating
scheme" is not what the BBC is setup for, nor is it what the UK general public
(which the BBC serves and is funded by) wants. This is why BBC Worldwide
already exists and is operated at 'arms length'.

~~~
jenscow
I would be glad if the BBC was to become self-sufficient.

------
toomanybeersies
I'm a bit confused as to what they're shutting down. It is
bbc.co.uk/food/recipes? I gather that they're keeping BBC Good Food though,
which is good.

It seems that if it the above url, it would be easy enough to scrape, since
all recipes are in form /food/recipes/recipe_name_id.

~~~
UVB-76
Just BBC Food (www.bbc.co.uk/food)

BBC Good Food is a commercial offering from BBC Worldwide and is unaffected.

------
IshKebab
This makes sense. BBC Good Food is much better anyway.

------
mehh
Interesting as they only revamped the site a couple of years back, to much
internal back patting, followed by lots of user complaints.

------
iamflimflam1
The Conservatives can't stand seeing a publicly funded body being successful
and useful.

------
ProxCoques
As much as I dislike Peter Hitchen's politics, he has it right when he says
that both major parties are now just commercial organisations, who raise money
wherever they can get it to buy their way into office through unscrupulous
election campaigns. They then presumably reward their donors once they are in
office. The electorate are a constitutional necessity for this process, but
otherwise their fears, hopes and desires are largely irrelevant.

