CHRISTIAN leaders in the UK just don’t get it ….
Despite the fact that every recent survey has indicated that listeners want LESS, not more religion from the BBC, the message simply will not sink in.
The week began with reports that the Archbishop of Canterbury had “warned” Mark Thompson, Director General of the not ignore its Christian audience.
His intervention, according to the Telegraph, comes amid mounting concern among senior members of the Church of England that the BBC is downgrading its religious output and giving preferential treatment to minority faiths.
Rev Dr Joel Edwards, chair of the Churches’ Media Council council, said:
The Rev Joel Edwards
There’s no doubt that the BBC’s specific expertise in religion has been diminished over the past few years as the TV side of the department has shrunk.
He urged the BBC to:
Rebuild its authority and secure the confidence of the faith communities by appointing staff and commissioning programmes that reflect the vibrancy of Christianity and the other UK faiths.
Christina Rees, a member of the Archbishops’ Council, was quoted as saying:
The vast majority of the population identifies itself as Christian and as the established Church in England we would be negligent not to take an active concern in the changes happening with the BBC’s religion and ethics department.
The “changes” that so bother the likes of Rees include the recent sacking of the BBC’s head of religious programmes, Michael Wakelin, a Methodist preacher.
The emergence of a Muslim as the front-runner to succeed Mr Wakelin, along with the recent appointment of a Sikh to produce Songs of Praise, has raised fears within the Church that the Christian voice is being sidelined.
But in a statement issued today the National Secular Society points out that, according to the Corporation’s annual report, the amount of religion broadcast on the BBC is already out of proportion – and rising.
On BBC1 there were 105 hours – 25 hours more than they had committed to. BBC3 promised five hours and delivered two. BBC 4 was committed to 15 hours and delivered 36.
Radio 4 committed to 200 hours of religious programming but in the end, unsurprisingly, delivered 223 hours. This did not take into account the large amount of religious input into programmes such as Today, Woman’s Hour, You and Yours and other current affairs programmes.
Radio 2 promised 170 hours of religion and delivered 186. Overall, the amount of religion broadcast on BBC radio rose from 1,078 hours in 2006/7 period to 1,114 in the 2007/8 period.
NSS Pesident Terry Sanderson said:
And yet, according to recent research by Ofcom, only 6 percent per cent of viewers watch religious programmes on the main TV channels – the lowest score of any programme genre.
When Ofcom asked viewers which type of programme was most important to them, only 5 percent said religion. And only 9 percent of viewers thought there should be more religion on TV – with no indication that they are all Christian.
Terry Sanderson, president of the NSS, said:
We know the BBC is a public service broadcaster and must serve all sections of the community, but let’s take the needs of the licence-payer into account as well as the Archbishop. They clearly want less religion on TV, not more. The BBC cannot be used as a recruiting officer for the churches. The fact is, religion is no longer very important to the majority of people in this country and the BBC should reflect that.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
March 30th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
A corporation supported by taxpayer money has neither the moral nor (I suggest) legal right to broadcast propaganda that treats as a fact that the 64 percent of the population who adhere to a religion are right–even though for any one religion to be right, all others must be wrong–and that the 36 percent who do not believe in any religion are wrong. The reason church attendance has dropped to such a low level is that more and more nominal believers are learning that, by the criterion of a preponderance of the evidence, religion is as indefensible as astrology or tealeaf reading. If the Church of England, which represents LESS than 36 percent of the population, deserves to be promoted by taxpayer funds, then clearly so does the National Secular Society.
March 30th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
The god squad never stop whinging; they already get loads of taxpayers’ money – directly and indirectly – and lots of free publicity from a compliant BBC. Why can’t they keep their mumbo-jumbo to themselves? There are already enough scary religious channels on satellite to pacify these brain-dead zealots without the terrestrial channels being polluted.
March 30th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
“The vast majority of the population identifies itself as Christian”
… Proof of that? I don’t remember being asked what I identify myself as?
March 31st, 2009 at 8:05 am
I have yet to see or hear a single hour of BBC coverage devoted to Lucifer, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the Great Old Ones. Yet they all have more religious validity than the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is clearly the product of a diseased imagination. With a beard.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:34 am
Any/all religious leaders with beards should be treated with the greatest suspicion and avoided if possible.
March 31st, 2009 at 9:08 am
If I and the other 10 million Doctor Who viewers (regular church going population 800,000 odd) declare ourselves a religion, do we get the new series a damn sight quicker?
Just a thought.
March 31st, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Edwards says:’There’s no doubt that the BBC’s specific expertise in religion has been diminished over the past few years as the TV side of the department has shrunk.’
Has he forgotten that the CMC’s rep on BBC faith liason committees IS the BBC producer responsible for an instantly forgettable ‘Easter Story’ film screened last year with massive pre-publicity?
And in passing, might be worth mentioning that the Catholic church’s rep on those bodies is another BBC employee with considerable input to those Sunday morning faith programmes which pose as ‘moral discussion chat shows’.
So, they get a seat on the advisory bodies while humanists and minority faiths don’t, they get paid from the licence fees to produce superstitious twaddle, and they’re still not happy!
March 31st, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Sarah, the claim that the vast majority of Brits identify as Christian comes, I think, from the 2001 census. I have mentioned this before and referred to what I call the Chinos, Christian in name only. I don’t know if it would be possible to run some kind of campaign before the 2011 census to see if we can prod said Chinos gently in the direction of putting what they actually believe instead of simply ticking the Christian box without thinking. It could be that the higher profile that religion has had over the decade will do that anyway but it wouldn’t harm to help it along. It would be most enjoyable to watch the godly lot panic if the next census showed up 5% or something like that.
It is worth mentioning a Radio 4 show called Beyond Belief which normally airs at 4:30pm on Mondays when it is running. This show is often so assinine that it is unintentionally funny.
March 31st, 2009 at 6:51 pm
The desperate cries of a dying beast.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:07 am
Ask average people in the pub what religion they are and they will probably say “catholic” or “christian”, before looking a bit nervous and adding “…but i’m not practising or anything”.
They just seem to think it’s something passed down through thier family, they are because thier parents were.
April 3rd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I wonder if we protested outside the BBC offices, tore up our TV licences like the Christians who protested against ‘Jerry Springer the Opera’, the BBC would take heed and remove religous propoganda off the air?
Somehow I don’t think so!