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The Bishop of Wakefield, the Rt. Revd Nigel McCulloch, has urged members of his diocese to share his widespread concern about the direction in which BBC religious broadcasting has been moving recently; and to express that concern as widely as possible. The Bishop has strongly criticised the recent strategy document, "The BBC Beyond 2000", for not making any specific mention of religion in its 22 pages. He has also expressed great anxiety about threats to posts within the BBC Religious Broadcasting Department In Manchester following five earlier job losses.

Bishop Nigel drew particular attention to the way in which, on both television and radio, religious broadcasting has increasingly been scheduled at times which make it difficult to attract strong audiences. This would inevitably, he felt, lead to poorer quality of religions broadcasting This, he said, would be a great tragedy in the light of the outstanding quality which for so long has been a hallmark of the BBC's religious programmes.

In 1996 the BBC had issued what were in effect "promises" to licence payers. These had stated tliat religious broadcasting would always have an important place in the BBC.

Specific "promises" had been made to provide additional religious programmes that would be attractive to young audiences; that regional and cultural variations in belief and worship would be reflected in the programmes; that the needs of people whose faith is undefined would be met with broadcasts which explored belief, meaning, purpose and value; that efforts would be made to achieve an appropriate balance between the faiths; that broadcast programmes of religious worship, music and comment would be made at prominent places in the television and radio schedules.

The Bishop contended that these "promises" had not been matched and quoted from research made available through the Communications Unit, where he is the Church of England's "lead bishop", and the Churches' Advisory Council for Local Broadcasting of which he is currently President.

He provided ten examples:

1 Prayer for the Day has been switched to 5 45 am (from 6 25 am).

2. The Daily Service has been confined to long wave Radio 4 only. First the Saturday Daily Service was removed from the morning schedule, in the 1980s, then its substitute Ten to Ten disappeared from Saturday evenings, so ending daily worship begun in 1928.

3. The duration of Thought for the Day has been reduced.

Sunday worship is shorter - 38 minutes from 8.07 am instead of 45 minutes from from 9 30 am.

5 Sunday is shorter - 45 minutes from 7.10 am instead of 55 minutes from 7.40 am. It had been extended ten years earlier.

6. The Week in Synod was discontinued.

7. Seeds of Faith was discontinued

8. Something Understood was reduced by 20 minutes, so finishing earlier, at 6 36 am

9. The Moral Maze has been moved from peak-time to off-peak - 9 03 am to 8.03 pm.

10..Pause for Thought has been removed from BBC World Service Schedules.

The Bishop emphasised that this marginalisation of scheduling, and reduction and disappearance of programmes should no longer go unchallenged - and that the undermining of the traditional place of religious broadcasting in the schedules went far beyond the recently highly publicised failure to broadcast an act of worship on Christmas Day. He suggested that our duty "to take the Light of Christ into the new millennium" should make us the more aware of how that light was in danger of being dimmed permanently on the radio and television channels of this nation. Accordingly he has invited the members of his diocese to draw the attention of their MPs to these facts, to heighten public awareness through the media, to encourage local churches ecumenically to take action, and to write directly to the BBC's Chairman, Sir Christopher Bland at 10 Catherine Place, London, SW1E 6HF.

My kitchen radio is welded to radio 4 and I have caught some of these shows from time to time. The new Sunday service slot is before our own service whereas it used to fall partly during the service. I found this rather too much of a good thing and have been skipping the radio version. Church services start at various times but 8.07 for a "main" Sunday service would be unusual. Certainly the reasonable time for such a radio broadcast would be at the time people go to Church as a benefit to those who can't make it. This is probably a live service so will not be a lot of fun for the congregation either. Moral Maze depends on the subject, it can be rather good or soporific like the lettuce Peter rabbit ate. Sunday can be surprisingly interesting as it has the Church news and is well put together. I have not caught the other shows but they all seem to be geared to the early riser. We used to have analogue satellite television which broadcast a God channel in the (very) early morning (it had the word God in the top corner of the screen) but we don't get it on digital. This was strong on American imports but I did catch a debate by some Ulster folks before the Easter dawn service one year. There is a Christian radio station down South. Any comments on this subject would be welcome.