Church of England demands even more time on TV and Radio

The Church of England is ramping up pressure on the BBC to broadcast more programmes about Christianity – despite the fact that viewers don’t want to see them.

The issue will be voted on at the forthcoming General Synod, when a motion will demand to know why the coverage of Christianity has declined on the BBC.

A background paper published ahead of the debate next month claims that “the few programmes that do still make it onto screens” do not “celebrate” faith but see it as a problem. This seems to be saying that propaganda rather than the truth is what is being called for.

Nigel Holmes, a former BBC employee who proposed the Private Member’s Motion, pointed out that the corporation’s main religious show last Christmas was presented by Fern Britton, the former daytime TV presenter. He said that there are now just two regular religious programmes on BBC television: Songs of Praise and The Big Questions. He claims BBC 3 tackles the subject “from the angle of the freak show” and Channel 4 takes an “unduly critical” and “sensationalist” attitude towards Christianity. ITV shows “next to nothing” about faith.

Mr Holmes says statistics show that output has fallen from 177 hours of religious programming on BBC television in 1987-88 to 155 hours in 2007-08, while the number of general programmes has doubled.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “According to the BBC’s own research, as well as that from Ofcom, it is clear that viewers do not want more religion on TV. The Church of England is also rather selective about what statistics it uses. Religion dominates the BBCs radio channels – particularly Radio 4. According to the BBC’s Annual Report, 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. How much more time do they want? Have they not noticed the precipitous drop in church attendance? Or maybe they have, and are desperate for the BBC to do their evangelising for them at public expense.

“And yet, according to recent research by Ofcom, only 6% 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% chose religion. And only 9% of viewers thought there should be more religion on TV.”

“Take this with the amount of religion being broadcast on satellite TV (Sky has 17 dedicated Christian TV channels and 13 Christian radio channels) and you realise that for those who want religion there is an abundance of it already available. It seems the Church of England will not be satisfied until the BBC is absolutely awash with its propaganda. The BBC should disregard the special pleading and take account of the licence-payers’ clearly stated preferences.”