BBC Cuts Religion & Ethics

From The Living Church-

The BBC, already under fire for farming out its flagship religious program, Songs of Praise, for private production, is taking more heat after announcing the closure of its Religion and Ethics Department.

“It is a failure of the BBC as a public service broadcaster,” said the Rt. Rev. Graham James, Bishop of Norwich and the Church of England’s media spokesman. James said it was a strange decision, given the BBC’s pledge to the media watchdog Ofcom, which begins regulating the corporation on Monday, that it would boost religious programming.

For its part, the BBC refuses to say how many staff jobs would be lost following the changes.

More here-

http://livingchurch.org/bbc-cuts-religion-ethics?platform=hootsuite

Songs, but what have they done with the Praise?

From The Daily Mail-

Broadcasting services from parishes and cathedrals across the country, for more than 50 years Songs of Praise has been much loved as the BBC’s flagship religious programme.

But after a relaunch as a magazine-style programme earlier this month in a move to attract a wider audience, loyal viewers have been left feeling it is becoming little more than ‘the One Show with added hymns’.

And even the clergy has hit out at the new format, with the Reverend Sally Hitchiner leading calls to bring ‘actual worship’ back into the programme, claiming it no longer felt ‘authentic’ and that spirituality seemed to be taking a backseat.

Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2848193/Songs-Praise-New-look-programme-ridiculed-little-One-hymns.html#ixzz3K5gYnhMB

Church of England is 'living in the past', says BBC's head of religion

From The London Telegraph-

Aaqil Ahmed, a controversial executive whose appointment last year prompted more than 100 complaints, said: "I think all the faiths should be treated in the same way. I don't believe in treating any faith differently."

He dismissed claims that the BBC was marginalising religion as overly simplistic and argued that Christianity, in particular, was already covered well on television.

His comments come on the eve of a debate at the General Synod, the Church's parliament, over the BBC's treatment of Christianity.

There has been growing concern at top levels of the Church over the corporation's approach to religion, with warnings that it must not ignore its Christian audience.

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, met last year with Mark Thompson, the BBC's director-general, to discuss religious broadcasting.

Bishops, clergy and lay members of the General Synod will vote this week on a motion calling on the state broadcaster to explain why its television coverage of Christianity has declined so steeply in recent years.

Output has fallen from 177 hours of religious programming on BBC television in 1987/88 to 155 hours in 2007/08 - a period during which the overall volume of programming has doubled.
However, in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Ahmed, an award-winning programme-maker, said that the Church's criticisms were too simplistic.

More here-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7174716/Church-of-England-is-living-in-the-past-says-BBCs-head-of-religion.html

The Vicar of Dibley could be making a return to our TV screens - as a woman bishop

Further update on women Bishops in England !

She told an audience at Cheltenham Literature Festival that she believes writer Richard Curtis has a new series about her best loved character up his sleeve.

When the Vicar of Dibley ended with Geraldine's wedding, the plan was that it would all be so final that there could never be any revival, French told an audience of about 1,000 at Cheltenham Town Hall.

But she discovered after the end of series party that Richard Curtis had asked for the Dibley set to be kept in storage and not destroyed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3228408/Vicar-of-Dibley-may-return-as-woman-bishop-hints-Dawn-French.html