[interestednovice]

Presumably, that is to stop normal humans like ourselves from finding these things.

Yes, but what’s the point in that really.

They are completely open about having an iPlayer Beta option on Smart TVs (and also the beta view of the BBC News app), for example, but take deliberate obfuscation measures with their test websites. Obviously, if they were just design mockups or very early stage, they’d only be accessible internally anyway - but these are pages on the public internet, updated by the same main publishing system as the normal website, so you have to assume they’ll be found anyway and it’s not like they are totally unfit for use. All the normal articles are there.