BBC to cut 'soft news' and recipes from its website

BBC headquarters in central London
The BBC will announce far-reaching online cutbacks on Friday

The BBC will this week announce far-reaching cuts to its website, after coming under pressure from ministers to rein in “soft news” content such as magazine articles, recipes, and travel advice.

Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the director-general, will announce on Friday that the corporation’s website “cannot be all things to all people”, and will pledge to create clear boundaries about what the BBC will not do online, after George Osborne criticised the broadcaster’s “imperial ambitions”.

The internet retreat will come in one of the most important weeks in the BBC’s history, as it awaits the publication, on Thursday, of government plans for its future size and scope. The corporation is also braced for a report from the National Audit Office, on how it has handled critical projects such as the construction of a new EastEnders set, which will be published on Tuesday.

John Whittingdale, the culture secretary
John Whittingdale will remove a requirement in the BBC's charter that it develops new technologies

Newspapers have long claimed that the corporation has had no mandate to expand into the online sphere, with its vast output of free news content making it impossible for commercial rivals to compete.

In a speech to former BBC staff last week, a member of the corporation’s own governing body criticised the broadcaster’s website. Richard Ayre, a member of the BBC Trust, called on the corporation to “leave the magazine content, the celebrity gossip, the skateboarding ducks, the games and the puzzles to other providers, who frankly can do it just as well, or better”.

In response to pressure from ministers, Lord Hall will pledge that the BBC website will become more tightly focused on video content, and limited to a core news service, without additional magazine-style material.

The vast library of recipes is expected to be excised, save for those linked to recently transmitted food programmes, while travel information that can already be found on the Highways Agency website is also set to be axed.

The BBC will present the proposals the day after John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, publishes a white paper containing plans for a new eleven-year royal charter for the broadcaster. Mr Whittingdale will presage the move by announcing that he has removed a requirement in the BBC’s charter that it should develop “emerging communications technologies and services”, which the corporation has used to justify its online growth.

Mr Osborne made the first ministerial assault on the corporation’s web offering last year. He said: “If you’ve got a website that’s got features and cooking recipes – effectively the BBC website becomes the national newspaper as well as the national broadcaster. 

“You wouldn’t want the BBC to completely crowd out national newspapers. The BBC website... is becoming a bit more imperial in its ambitions.”

BBC chairman Rona Fairhead
BBC chairman Rona Fairhead narrowly avoided being sacked by John Whittingdale last week

Talks over the BBC’s next royal charter continued yesterday, with the broadcaster mounting a bid to water down plans to allow the government to appoint most of the non-executive directors on the corporation’s new unitary board, which will replace the BBC Trust.

Mr Whittingdale wants the power to appoint six non-executives to the new board that will run the corporation’s affairs, including the chair and deputy chair, while allowing the corporation’s chairman to nominate five.

Two BBC executives, including Lord Hall, would sit on the board, ensuring that the government appointees formed a minority, but the BBC is adamant that Mr Whittingdale should have the right to appoint only the chair and deputy chair, with the remaining nine non-executive directors nominated via an independent process.

A cross-party group of peers will today publish a bill aimed at preventing ministers from interfering with the BBC, as campaigners claimed there was a growing groundswell of backbench MPs set to come out against Mr Whittingdale’s plans to rein in the corporation, including by forcing it to publish how much it pays its stars.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill, the Liberal Democrat QC who has drafted the legislative proposal, said: “Our Bill would set in statute governing principles protecting the independence and effectiveness of the BBC as a public service ​broadcaster.”

License this content