Church expresses deep concern over drop in religious broadcasting on TV

The Church of England’s General Synod today passed a motion expressing its “deep concern” at the number of hours being given to religious programmes on television.

The motion, put forward by lay member Nigel Holmes, was passed after being heavily amended to broaden criticism against the BBC to other public service broadcasters like ITV, Channel Four, and Five.

While he praised the “strong” religious output on radio, he said “a lack of innovation combined with marginalised scheduling” indicated that TV channel controllers had “shunned” spiritual subjects.

“That frankly is not good enough when it comes to a public service corporation that receives an annual income for its domestic services of no less than £3.6 billion,” he said.

He lamented that televised worship had “gone altogether” on ITV and was “seldom” shown on the BBC.

“There seems to be an unspoken presumption that sport, natural history and the arts are at heart good in themselves and worthy of coverage.

“Those who find religion to be a valuable part of their lives today always appear to be on the back foot, having to justify their presence, to justify that it is indeed a force for good.”

He added: “A fortnight ago the BBC announced commissioning research to improve representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual people. Perhaps it could do the same for those who proclaim a faith?”

The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, said the whole breadth of public service broadcasting had come under “corrosive attack” in recent years, due to the impact of the recession and drop in advertising revenues.

He said the Church had to speak into the debate on religious broadcasting in a way that was visionary rather than protectionist.

“The BBC especially does have a public purpose to sustain citizenship and civil society and reflecting an activity engaged in by 3 million in this country in worship is surely part of that duty,” he said.

“Let’s appreciate those making religious programmes at a difficult time of change in the industry, let’s express our concerns about reductions in the genre across all the broadcasting channels and let’s press for high quality religious content that does specifically include worship.”

Elaine Storkey, Chair of the Church and Media Network, said the big issue for the Church was not so much television but the internet and digital media. She called for more funds to help the Church engage with the proliferation of digital media like Facebook and YouTube.

“We talk about not having spirituality on television for young people. Just look at what’s going out on the internet in terms of spirituality … All the fundamentals are being questioned and answered within that context,” she said.

“Digital culture means that broadcasting is no longer solely the preserve of these old professionals. It is quite likely that the computer will migrate into the living room. What are we going to do about it? Keep debating the television?”