AS SOON as the Election campaign is over, another campaign will
start in earnest. The BBC will be seeking your support as it
renegotiates its charter and licence fee. In the light of its
latest plans to reorganise the way in which it commissions its
religious and ethical television programmes, you may wonder whether
it deserves it.
At the moment, the commissioner is the Head of the in-house
Religion and Ethics Department, Professor Aaqil Ahmed. Under new
plans outlined last week by the BBC's new Controller of Factual
Commissioning, Emma Swain, he will lose his ability to commission
programmes. It appears that the BBC thinks that his is a
one-day-a-week commissioning job, since whoever is appointed as the
new commissioner will also be responsible for science, business,
and history. As Leonardo Da Vinci is not available, it is difficult
to think of any other Renaissance figure qualified for such a
task.
This arrangement contrasts starkly with the Corporation's plans
for the commissioning of the arts, where, instead of having one
person doing four jobs, it has two people - a head and a director -
doing one.You may wonder why this matters.
There is no serious problem with the potential supply of
excellent religious programmes, as I can testify from my work with
the Sandford St Martin Trust. Last year, our annual broadcasting
awards recognised the work of Professor Simon Schama and Lord
Bragg, among many others. But producers can make only what is
commissioned. They may have all sorts of wonderful ideas, but in
the end, if they want to stay in work, they have to make what the
commissioner wants.
The market in religious and ethical programmes is very small.
The non-BBC broadcasters have more or less given up in this area.
Channel 4, for example, no longer has a specialist commissioning
editor for religion. One of the arguments for public-service
broadcasting is that it is needed where there is so-called "market
failure". Since the market has well and truly failed in this area
of television, the BBC commissioner is crucial. It is also crucial
that she or he has real expertise in the area, has read widely, and
is fully alert to the potential of the subject-matter, and to
possible programme suppliers. To expect this person to be equally
expert in the fields of science, business, and history is to
exhibit, at best, excessive optimism; at worst, dangerous
naïvety.
The situation in BBC News is equally worrying. It has specialist
editors for economics, business, finance, sport, the arts, defence,
foreign and home affairs, and security, etc. What is does not have
is a Religion Editor: someone of real knowledge and authority, who
can be an important influence on air and in the newsroom. It does
have a religious-affairs correspondent: Caroline Wyatt - a former
defence correspondent, who had no real expertise in religion before
she was appointed. She is now doing an excellent job. But she goes
where she is sent.
WHY does the BBC, its television arm in particular, have such a
problem with God? Perhaps it is because, like Stephen Fry and
Professor Richard Dawkins, the only God of which it can conceive is
a medieval tyrant.
BBC Televison has consistently failed to develop an imaginative
strategy for the coverage of religion and ethics which matches the
potential of the subject. Its own in-house department was exiled to
Manchester in the early 1990s because, in the view of BBC bosses,
something had to be moved out of London, and moving religion would
cause the least fuss.
The subsequent three heads of department all left,
disillusioned. The present head, Professor Ahmed, now has half a
job. (Of course, he could apply for the new commissioning post,
provided he can suddenly develop an expertise in business, history,
and science.)
So, where in the BBC will religious knowledge and expertise lie
in future? The members of the radio arm of Religion and Ethics in
Salford will continue to achieve miracles with diminishing
resources, but they will be increasingly isolated, with no formal
links to the rest of the Corporation, and a much reduced in-house
television team.
This corporate failure is both tragic and serious, because the
need for a religiously literate public- service broadcaster has
never been greater. As the Bishop of Leeds, the Rt Revd Nick
Baines, who chairs the Sandford St Martin Trust, asks: "When it is
impossible to understand the modern world - its politics,
economics, military and humanitarian events - without understanding
religion, why isn't religion being prioritised by the BBC as
needing expert commissioning?"
He goes on: "Will the new Commissioning Head of Specialist
Factual be issued specific objectives and goals that will help
ensure informed coverage of religion as a motivator and factor in
local, national, and world events? And, if so, when will these
become known?"
Some - perhaps many - of us need convincing answers to these
questions before we can give our wholehearted support to the
Corporation's campaign for a new charter, and a substantial licence
fee. It will not be sufficient for the BBC to issue reassurances
about how seriously it takes religious and ethical coverage. There
have been many of those in the past. The minimum requirement is for
a commissioning editor who can spend much more than one day a week
on religious programmes; a Religion Editor in BBC News; and
enhanced training of BBC journalists and producers in one of the
most vital areas of public service broadcasting.
Roger Bolton is a former presenter of BBC Radio 4's
Sunday programme and a trustee of the Sandford St Martin Trust,
which promotes excellence in religious programmes (www.
http://sandfordawards.org.uk/).