BBC to remove thousands of recipes from its website

Thousands of recipes are to be removed from the BBC's website as part of a plan to cut £15 million from its online budget and focus on "distinctive public service content".

More than 11,000 online recipes are be dropped, although recipes from television shows will remain online for a 30-day period after broadcast.

The plans will not affect commercial services such as BBC Good Food.

The move to drop the recipes follows the publication of the government's White Paper on the future of the BBC.

The corporation had come under criticism for not offering services that were distinct enough from newspapers.

As well as the BBC's Food website, its Newsbeat website and online News Magazine will also close.

BBC plans over next 12 months:

• Close the BBC's Food website

• Close the iWonder service, but redeploy its formats across BBC Online

• Close the online News Magazine and focus on distinctive long-form journalism online under a current affairs banner

• Close the separate Newsbeat site and app - but integrate Newsbeat output into BBC News Online

• Close the Travel Site and halt development of the Travel app - but continue to offer travel news online as part of BBC News

• Reduce digital radio and music social media activity and additional programme content that is not core to services

An online petition to save the BBC's recipe archive has attracted thousands of supporters - with numbers still rising - as campaigners called it a "precious resource" for people.

Many people have taken to social media and tweeted about their disappointment at hearing that the recipes will be taken down.

A BBC source said: "What we do has to be high quality, distinctive, and offer genuine public value.

"While our audiences expect us to be online, we have never sought to be all things to all people and the changes being announced will ensure that we are not."