An Ofcom report has shown a slight increase in public service TV broadcasts about religion and ethics last year.
Last year there were 171 hours of religion and ethics programmes from public service broadcasters, nearly all of which came from the BBC.
ITV and Channel 4 each had one hour of religious programmes during the whole year, while Channel 5 had none.
In the previous year there was a total of 168 hours of religious programming.
The 2025 figures, while a slight increase are still around a third lower than the peak of religious programming in 2013, when there were 254 hours of religious TV programmes.
Daisy Scalchi, BBC Head of Religion and Ethics for TV, said: “The BBC’s commitment to religion and ethics content is demonstrably strong.
"Audience habits have changed dramatically over the last 15 years, and we need to meet audiences where they are today – this includes programming in both peak and daytime TV but also programming that can gain a strong audience over time, and at their convenience, as viewers come to our content on iPlayer and other BBC platforms.
“The BBC provides almost 99 per cent of the UK’s broadcast religion programming across a wide variety of content, featuring documentaries, factual entertainment, worship, events and live debate, as well as titles in Children’s, Nations, BBC Bitesize and Education and a dedicated Religion Editor in News.
“Nor is religious representation limited solely to religion-specific programmes, as there are religious characters and storylines across entertainment and drama. There is no other UK media organisation consistently reflecting faith and belief across such a breadth of content and formats”.
The BBC has previously faced criticism for an apparent lack of religious understanding, with former BBC journalist Roger Bolton lamenting the corporation’s “relative illiteracy about religion, both what it is and the way it’s practised”.
His views echo those of Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, who said earlier this year, “My concern is much more about the place of religion across the whole output of the BBC, rather than simply seeing it as religious broadcasting in that rather more narrow definition. So I note with sadness and some distress the sometimes appalling lack of religious literacy in so much of the BBC."
In comment at the at the Religion Media Festival last month, the Archbishop lamented what he sees as widespread religious illiteracy in the media while also welcoming examples of religious programming that encourage wider understanding, including the BBC’s recent series on pilgrimage.
