BBC recipes will be moved to Good Food as online petition nears 170,000
The Corporation have clarified what the closure of BBC Food will mean with "as much of the content as possible" moved to the BBC Good Food website
The BBC have issued a climbdown over the future of their recipe archive, after nearly 170,000 people signed a petition to save it.
The corporation had yesterday announced plans to close the BBC Food website – which currently has a database of over 11,000 recipes - with the scores of methods and instructions to be “archived or mothballed."
The move followed months of negotiations with the Government over the BBC’s need to deliver “distinctive” content which is not provided by the commercial sector. This was enshrined in a new mission statement ordered in the BBC White Paper which imposed on the Corporation a new commitment to "distinctiveness" as well as "impartiality."
What exactly is happening to BBC online recipes?
But, following public outrage and a popular Change.org petition, the BBC have changed tack.
In a statement issued late on Tuesday, the Corporation said it would move as much as possible of the content currently on its BBC Food website over to the BBC Good Food site, which is owned by commercial arm BBC Worldwide.
"There's been a lot of interest in BBC recipes today," a BBC spokesperson said. "We are glad that so many people care so much about all our content. But just to be clear, we have never said we'd delete all the recipes and nor will we.
"We currently have two websites and we'll move to one. The recipes you love will still be available and we'll migrate as much of the content as possible to the BBC Good Food website. So you'll still be able to carry on baking and cooking with the BBC."
