BBC told to cut website spending
The BBC has been ordered to shake up its extensive online services, which cost licence feepayers tens of millions of pounds a year.
Millions of people use the websites, but Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell commissioned a review of the BBC's internet services after concerns that its spending on new media had spiralled out of control.
The corporation is now set to cut back its web services, which include entertainment and leisure sites devoted to soap operas and celebrity as well as news and education.
BBC websites on fantasy football and local entertainment listings were not "sufficiently distinctive from commercial alternatives, or were inadequately associated with public service purpose to be justified by the remit", said the report, which was published today.
Critics have also singled out online games as a waste of the licence fee, while a parenting service which has no programme connection has also come in for scrutiny. Commercial rivals have complained that BBC websites funded by the licence fee are unfair and deter new launches.
Ms Jowell ordered the report after commercial operators said BBC sites had a negative impact on the new media market.
The British Internet Publishers Association said the BBC had " broken a catalogue of promises" by going over the agreed £21million budget since the service was launched in 1998. Today Ms Jowell gave the BBC until October to come up with a new remit for its £72.3 million online services, after the major independent review conducted by former Trinity Mirror chief executive Philip Graf.
Its recommendations include a "precautionary approach" to investment in BBC Online, the appointment of two governors to regulate internet services and a priority on news, current affairs and education.
A quarter of all BBC online services outside news should be supplied-from outside the corporation, the review adds. The BBC has started to close certain sites it has decided cannot be justified under the so-called public service tests.
The BBC welcomed the recommendation that governors should have access to more expert and independent advice and said these measures had been proposed in its charter review document last week. A review is also being conducted into the BBC's digital TV channels.
