Keep the BBC's recipe archive on line

[ffutures]

The BBC has been talking about taking down its huge archive of recipes from cooking programs etc, there's a petition I've joined that might interest others:

https://www.change.org/p/bbc-save-the-bbc-s-recipe-archive

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why taking this database offline is going to save money. Surely the only costs involved are the hosting costs? And for a corporation like the BBC, I'd have imagined their cost to host stuff on the internet was negligable in the big picture.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Your guess is as good as mine.

[uk-sef.livejournal.com]

1. The hosting side has actually been extremely difficult for the BBC to manage, in various ways (judging by what I've seen of it through the noughties); and they really would have a far higher hit rate than most companies. They've been slashing (or off-loading) their various service offerings hugely for years precisely because those were the things being used.*

2. There was also more of a pay-per-view recipe site to which the existing data would be transferred. Hence a deliberate attempt to monetise it.

3. Meanwhile, many interviewees said they didn't buy cookbooks any more (see other comment stream below); they just "googled" or equivalent, including BBC searches, for anything they wanted. So that physical monetisation route is largely shut down now.

4. They keep being accused of being too good (though sometimes that's a ridiculously false claim!) and driving competitors out of the market (eg the commercial TV channels).*

* This combination of course is the complete reverse of what many normal people want - which is for a publicly owned corporation to be the first and best one-stop-shop there is for public data and services, such that there's either no point in privately owned stuff at all or it is continually forced to step up to the challenge of actually being better. (NB The BBC also has a bunch of issues around wanting to pretend to be the best without bothering to really put the work in any more - mostly because the quality of its current staff is lower than the originals while feeling a lot more "entitled").

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Ah okay, that makes sense. Close the free part, keep the monetised part.

But yes I've been hearing this 'too good' argument quite often now, that the BBC are so amazingly awesome it's not fair on the commercial broadcasters because they just can't compete. Which is... painfully hilarious if that's the best argument Murdoch/Sky could come up with.