Thought for the Day explicitly excludes non-religious contributors.
The BBC should move away from biased religious programming. That should begin with a rethink of Thought for the Day.
The BBC has a long history of pro-religion bias in its output, which is typified by Thought for the Day.
Thought for the Day is a daily slot on BBC Radio 4's flagship news programme, Today. For nearly three minutes, religious leaders offer "reflections from a faith perspective on issues and people in the news". Nonreligious people and leaders of less popular religions, no matter how well-respected their views, are not allowed to contribute.
Despite being within such a prominent discussion slot, Thought for the Day is outside the programme's editorial control. This means there is no right to reply when the slot is used for political or religious proselytising.
- Fewer than one in five British people think BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day should exclusively feature religious content.
- Religious radio programmes are the least popular and least well received according to the BBC's own research.
Public apathy towards Thought for the Day is even shared by Today's former presenter, John Humphrys, who described the slot as "inappropriate" and "deeply, deeply boring" in 2017. His colleague Justin Webb has also criticised it.
Reforming Thought for the Day to include speakers of any religion or belief would improve overall quality, make it relevant to Today's audience and remove the unjustifiable discrimination. Contributors should be picked without reference to their religious or non-religious identity.
There is a place for high quality, critical religion and belief programming on the BBC – but not one-sided promotion of religion.
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Latest updates
BBC Trust rules against presenter who asked Christian Concern campaigner if she was a bigot
Posted: Thu, 10 Mar 2016 15:10
Former BBC presenter Iain Lee has said he is "flabbergasted" after the BBC Trust ruled his interview with a Christian campaigner was a "serious breach" of editorial guidelines.
In the interview, which took place in November 2015, Lee was in discussion with Libby Powell, a lawyer for Christian Concern, discussing the case of a prison worker who faced disciplinary action for reading anti-gay verses from the Bible during a sermon. Christian Concern had taken up the man's case and Lee challenged Powell over whether the anti-gay remarks were bigoted and homophobic.
Powell said that she thought homosexuality was sinful and that all her client had done was "dare to speak the Bible".
Lee then asked her if she supported the bigotry and Powell replied that it was not bigotry but "God's word."
"Homophobia is bigotry," Lee countered, in a heated exchange. After reading out anti-gay verses from the Bible himself, Lee said that the words, read by the prison worker during a sermon he had delivered, were bigoted.
The BBC Trust ruled that "the interviewees were not treated with respect but instead faced significant personal criticism and challenge and that, overall, the tone of the interviews was inappropriate.
"The Trustees considered that the presenter should have been able to robustly and properly challenge the interviewees without recourse to personal attack and without taking a personal position on it.
"They noted that a final interviewee from the Gay and Lesbian Christian Movement was able to challenge the views of the two previous interviewees in a manner that was measured and productive."
The report also noted that "the presenter regretted that he might have appeared to be opposed to Christianity, or religion generally, when this was not the case."
Ofcom had received six complaints about the interview but took no action.
As a result of the controversy around the interview the BBC "produced a face to face training programme for presenters and their programme teams that would be rolled out across the BBC's local radio services".
BBC continues to reduce its unpopular religious programming
Posted: Thu, 29 Oct 2015 15:41
The BBC's latest annual report indicates a general reduction in the hours the Corporation devotes to religious broadcasting. The only increase was on BBC1 which devoted 86 hours to religious programmes in the 2014/15 period while in the previous year it was 80 hours.
BBC2 reduced its religious output from 69 hours to 50 hours while BBC4 had 21 hours of religion – the same as last year.
The amount of religious output on BBC Radio reduced from 611 hours last year to 592 hours this year.
The BBC Trust says it is clear that the BBC must do all it can "to stay relevant to all audiences across the UK" and that here is more to do to address audience perceptions as to whether the BBC "fairly represents all the UK's nations and regions, religions and ethnicities."
Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, commented: "The BBC seems to be gradually getting the message that very few of its licence-payers are interested in directly religious programmes. We accept that religion cannot be ignored in the modern world – its malign influence is apparent in almost every news bulletin – but there is little evidence that the directly proselytising output is being reduced. We still have a Daily Service and Prayer for the Day as well as discriminatory slots like Thought for the Day and Pause for Thought, which are reserved entirely for religious contributors."
Mr Sanderson said that in an increasingly diverse society it was unrealistic to devote so much time to Christianity. "The BBC shouldn't allow its publicly-funded airways to be used to evangelise for a particular religion, which is basically what these daily church services do."
