Bishop’s fear for religious TV as BBC farms out Songs of Praise

THE BBC is to stop making Songs of Praise in a radical change that has been described as a ‘nail in the coffin’ of the country’s ‘religious literacy’.

The broadcaster has made the Sunday worship programme for 55 years, but will farm it out to commercial producers from summer.

Religious figures said the move would put the BBC’s coverage of religious festivals at risk and raised fears that Songs of Praise will lose its Christian focus in favour of other faiths.

The Rt Rev Graham James, Bishop of norwich, said: ‘It’s the only regular weekly televised worship, and so without it it’s difficult to see how the BBC will maintain its expertise.

‘That will have a knock-on effect on the broadcast of worship at other times, whether it’s great festivals, Remembrance Sunday or those great state occasions when a big act of worship is so much at the centre of it.

‘It’s a worry to some of us that it will be another nail in the coffin of our religious literacy as a nation.’

Others fear Songs of Praise will cut back on hymns and lose its Christian focus. Tory MP Andrew Bridgen accused the BBC of supporting ‘every religious minority except for Christians’.

The programme made its debut from the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Cardiff in 1961 and is one of the longestrunning worship series in the world.

But BBC executives have recently tried to give it an overhaul, turning it into a magazine series in 2014, dubbed ‘The One Show with hymns’.

And an insider said yesterday the independent production companies that won the three-year contract – Avanti and nine Lives Media – did so because they proposed further changes.

Avanti is known for its music programmes and made three Songs of Praise specials in 2013. nine Lives Media has won awards for its children’s programme I Am Leo, about the youngest teenager in Britain to be prescribed hormone therapy to change gender.

The BBC insisted yesterday that Songs of Praise would remain ‘at the heart’ of its religious programming and that ‘essential elements’ of the show would stay in place.

The BBC was forced to ask independent production compa- nies to pitch for shows last year under a deal with ministers.

But Mark Linsey, director of BBC Studios, its production arm, said: ‘We are disappointed with the outcome.’

Songs of Praise will keep its Sunday slot on BBC1. A source said it will occasionally ‘cover inter-religious initiatives’.

‘Another nail in the coffin’