THE BBC Trust today rejected calls for non-religious contributors to be allowed on Radio 4’s fatuous relic of a programme, Thought for the Day.
Complaints were made earlier this year that banning atheists, secularists or humanists from taking part in Thought for the Day breached the BBC’s guidelines on impartiality.
However, today the Guardian reports that the trust found that Thought for the Day is:
Religious output and that it is a matter of editorial discretion for the BBC executive and its director general as editor-in-chief as to whether the BBC broadcasts a slot commenting on an issue of the day from a faith perspective.
The BBC Trust editorial standards chairman, Richard Tait, said:
We understand that some people feel strongly about this issue and have given it careful consideration.
However, we have concluded that the current arrangements do not breach BBC editorial guidelines and specifically requirements of due impartiality in content.
The BBC Trust confirmed that Thought for the Day must comply with requirements of due impartiality and that any future complaints on particular broadcasts would be judged against these standards on a case-by-case basis.
Thought for the Day is broadcast at about 7.45am on Monday to Saturday as part of Radio 4’s flagship Today programme.
Secular and humanist groups have long campaigned for the slot to be opened up to people outside of religious groups, and in January this year a non-religious version, called Thought for the Afternoon, was broadcast on Radio 4’s Saturday afternoon programme, iPM.
The NSS's Terry Sanderson, left, and Keith Porteous Wood (photo: Barry Duke)
The National Secular Society, which was one of the complainants, said it would continue to look at “other ways of challenging this unjustifiable slot”
NSS president, Terry Sanderson, said:
Naturally we are very disappointed. This is a campaign we have been waging for 50 years, ever since Thought for the Day and its predecessors were first broadcast on the BBC. Every edition of Thought for the Day is a rebuke to those many people in our society who do not have religious beliefs.
Sanderson added that the campaign to open up Thought for the Day would continue.
This is so blatant an abuse of religious privilege that we cannot simply let it pass. Our evidence shows that five out of six of the public are heavily on our side. We will be looking at other ways of challenging this unjustifiable slot.
He also told the Telegraph, which revealed today that senior Church of England bishops have privately lobbied the trust over the importance of maintaining the status quo:
It is the only contentious programme on radio where the speakers face no challenge. If it can’t be opened to a wider range of voices, it should be taken off the air.
Claire Rayner, the agony aunt who is vice-president of the British Humanist Association agrees:
Thought for the Day is a relic of the past. It’s a slot that encourages disparity. Let it die quietly.
Andrew Copson, the director of education and public affairs for the British Humanist Association, added:
What a shame that the BBC Trust has not found the exclusively religious slot of Thought for the Day to be in breach of editorial guidelines. This is a real missed opportunity to correct the ongoing injustice of the exclusion of non-religious speakers on the programme.
We can see no good reason whatever why humanists are barred from making their contribution.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
November 17th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
So, do the Religionistas concede that Atheism is NOT a religion, as they so often ignorantly claim?
November 17th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Don’t forget the perfect antidote to TFTD:
” title=”Platitude of the Day:”>
November 17th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
BTW, Stonyground…
Your “shitwitted godidiot” comment on PFTD was class! Going to have to steal it.
November 17th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
How about a prosecution under the Trades Descriptions Act, on the grounds that most contributors couldn’t come up with one original thought in a decade, never mind a day!
November 17th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Interesting, since I complained about another poster on the Beeb referring to god in a debate that obviously required no reference. Needless to say my complaint was ‘not justified’
November 17th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
I have to say that I have become so addicted to the Platitude of the day spoof highlighted by Mr. Danaher that I was worried that any change in the format might spoil the fun. I used to hear it every day when I drove to work in a banger with a broken tape deck but now have an mp3 player in my car so rarely have the radio on. I still, however, go every morning to the POTD website for a fix.
By the way, has anyone seen what the devil’s kitchen has to say about Rowan Williams saying that we should put taxes up?
November 17th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
So not only do we have this platitudinous bullshit inflicted on us but the BBC succumbs to lobbying, in secret, by non elected bishops in the House of Lords.
All this means is we hit harder and oftener. Great democracy we have.
November 17th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
As I said before, maybe on another blog, why do they call it Thought For The Day when THINKING is the very last thing it encourages?
Here is a little-known ditty by Hilaire Bollocks:
A Thought For The Day
Will Keep Logic At Bay!
Most apposite!!
November 17th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Given the number of religious twats at the Bible Broadcasting Corporation this result is no surprise. The BBC, beneficiates of the stealth tax called the licence fee, are still free to proselytise. Impartiality, they don’t know the meaning of the word.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:54 am
why would any atheist want to go on it anyway dont we hear enough of the idiots prattling on darwinism and atheism are religions. ive never listened to it but ive seen Song of Praises and the irish Angelus if its in that vein it must be exceedingly dull.
November 18th, 2009 at 8:57 am
The first stage should be to get fringe religions to contribute. Odinism is officially a religion in the UK, maybe try to persuade scientologists to chip in as well. Once TFTD makes people confront that religions are not all christian people will stop wanting it.
November 18th, 2009 at 9:04 am
I would almost miss the daily religious plug before 8 am. It is a good time for clearing one’s throat after a night’s inactivity of the vocal chords and for the first laugh of the day.
November 18th, 2009 at 9:07 am
@jaffacakes: you don’t know what you’re missing! As I was walking along the other day, the thought came into my (otherwise empty) mind that we do live in a really wonderful and very marvellous universe, full of really wonderful and very marvellous things, that do give us ever such a lot to wonder and marvel about; and in a very real but wonderful way I was also thinking to myself “Isn’t it quite wonderful and marvellous, but also in a very real way very thought-provoking, that in this wonderful and marvellous universe that we just happen to inhabit…”
(Platitude Of The Day does it much better!)
November 18th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Harry.
I have been playing around with similar ideas. When I wrote about what they accepted, a few years ago, the answer was “It must be from people of faith”. OK, shouldn’t be too difficult to produce a few “faiths” and ensure the are plausible. If the Ann Atkins types, with their bigotry are acceptible, why should not decent people put their “faiths” forward.
I would also like to discover, via Freedom of Information, how much that few minutes costs – I know they send taxis and are prepared to put contributors up in convenient hotels.
I think we could be courteous, insistent and very bloody awkward. There are more ways of skinning a cat – sorry Blondie (our cat) – than one.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Has anyone in either the BHA or the NSS thought of doing a counter-Thought for the day podcast? Or has the dude behind Platitude of the Day thought about doing a podcast?
November 18th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
NuLabour and their BBC lackeys observe the politics of Animal Farm where some are more equal than others, but could not a case be made using the Equal Opportunities act? Just a thought – for today.
November 18th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
If you’re lucky enough to live in a place where local radio takes non-religious speakers for their TFTD equivalent, you can have a lot of fun with the format, and spookchasing primitive folk.
Round here there’s a local superstition about not saying the word ‘rat’ in case you attract them. One of my mates managed a ‘TFTD’ where he explained he was going to repeat the word non-stop for 2 minutes to prove it was only a superstition, then did.
‘Anal Annie’ Atkins will never match that one!
November 18th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Angela K. I think we should keep our cool and use whatever is available. This is censorship, enforced on us, and we are threatened into paying a license fee on pain – ultimately – of prison. We have one great weapon although that has a downside. The advantage is that atheists or secularists are almost always literate, intelligent and often hold degrees. The fundamentalists and christian loonies tend to be – particularly in the USA and if you have met them you know what I mean – of low educational attainment, thick as planks and twice as nasty, and very easily manipulted. However we all have one vote unless, like Dubya in the USA and various places in the UK when the “community leaders” (Muslim usually) decide who should vote which way.
I have to say, and I regret this, that in my “edge of the known world”, you have as much chance of finding someone who listens to Radio 4, reads a magazine like the New Statesman or Spectator, or gives a toss of any of this. They are too busy surviving on the mimimum wage, if they are able to get it. In effect, the literate argue with the literate, and the rest don’t give a toss. But they still have a vote if they can be bothered.
November 19th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Yes, Rozi, there are others available -
this one from the Humanist Society of Scotland:
Thought for the World
http://www.thoughtfortheworld.org/
_____
November 19th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I don’t know how it works in England but in the U.S., you go after the advertisers and that changes programming. Get enough people to threaten not to buy and you’ll be amazed at how quickly they’ll figure out that they want to serve the public better.
November 20th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
I’m not surprised at the BBC Trust’s decision. I don’t agree with it, but it’s the result I expected. The idea of TftD including non-faith viewpoints comes up every six months or so, and is always rejected. (It’s almost as if the BBC charter itself somehow casts the content of TftD in stone.)
At least, though, they should change its name, to reflect the content more accurately. Religious Thought for the Day? Today’s Faith Perspective?
February 6th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
All the schools I attended had morning assembly, BORING BORING and unbelievable.
When I was first at Sandhurst I was asked what religion I was and I replied Presbyterian and was promptly excused church parade. That allowed me to dash up to London for the
day. I later realized that atheism was a more honest answer and I am now a devout
non-believer!
I also have to admit to my grave doubts about Father Xmas and the Tooth Fairy and politicians and………..
Derek Waite
National Secular Society