BBC Newsbeat website and app to be closed in review also cutting online recipies

An announcement on the future of online services was expected on Tuesday afternoon

The BBC Newsbeat website

The BBC’s Newsbeat website and app are expected to be closed as part of cuts to its online content.

A spokesperson said the proposals, which are subject to approval, would see Newsbeat articles integrated into the BBC's news website.

“What we do has to be high quality, distinctive, and offer genuine public value,” a BBC source said.

“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.”

Newsbeat was launched as a programme on Radio 1 in 1973 but has expanded to include a website and social media channels offering news aimed at a younger audience.

An article advertising its free app in December said it included exclusive music news and interviews, as well as aiming to “make complex issues clear from politics and health to gaming and money”.

It also has an investigations team and sections on entertainment, sport, technology and “weird” news.

The online News Magazine was also set to be closed, alongside the iWonder service and local news index web pages.

James Harding, the BBC’s head of news and current affairs, will be briefing staff on the future of online services as content is slimmed down following the publication of a White Paper on the broadcaster's future.

The BBC is understood to be following Government recommendations to scale down online services to be distinctive and move away from competing with commercial media outlets.

Staff working in the services facing closure or cuts were informed of potential job losses on Tuesday.

More than 11,000 recipes are also expected to be removed as part of plans to save £15 million, in a move condemned as “abomination” by users of the free service.

Recipes from TV programmes will remain online for a set period as opposed to being available indefinitely on the BBC Food website, which will be closed under the proposals. BBC Worldwide's Good Food website is to remain.