The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, has voiced concern about the place of religion across the BBC’s entire output, noting “with sadness and some distress, the sometimes appalling lack of religious literacy in so much of the BBC”.
Speaking at a Religion Media Centre briefing on the green paper for the BBC Charter Review, he described religious and public service broadcasting as a “precious bulwark against polarisation”, but he questioned whether there was sufficient ambition within the BBC and government to sustain it in a changing media landscape.
He said he wanted to celebrate and support what the BBC, “generally speaking”, is doing and he wanted to speak about the real importance of public service broadcasting as a principle.
“The BBC itself, public service broadcasting, is something very precious in the media economy of this country. It is still in some ways, the envy of many other nations in the world. I’m simply flabbergasted that we take something so important and precious for granted”.
The green paper on the BBC Charter Review invites the public to share their views on its future, in advance of a new ten year charter running from January 2027. It considers the need to enhance public trust in the BBC, deliver news and information to educate and inform for the public good, drive growth in the creative economy and provide a sustainable funding model.
Religion was embedded into the founding documents of the BBC and the Corporation is still obliged to provide religion and belief content as part of its public service remit. There is a department of religion providing radio output based in Salford, and a TV commissioning editor based in London.
The Charter Review public consultation is an opportunity for the public to critique the BBC’s work and offer ideas for its future, so at the briefing, the Archbishop shared his own.
The BBC’s stated public purposes are, he said, to reflect society where religion “is a vital part of how millions and millions of people in Britain today get their belonging, values, purpose and identity”, but he felt the BBC was not fulfilling this.
Institutions like churches, mosques, gurdwaras and other community organisations bind the nation together, he argued, and policies are need at every level of government to strengthen these organisations.
He said: “It troubles me that I don’t see the larger political vision to do that and religious broadcasting becomes the poor and underfunded relative in a BBC which I believe needs to be reminded of its core business”.
His concern was not with the religion department in Salford, but the wider BBC.
He wanted to believe that public service broadcasting could survive in a new media landscape, but he reflected: “In the last year, when I’ve been interviewed often by podcasters, or even, I have to say Sky, I’ve felt I’ve had a much longer engagement, much more thoughtful engagement, much greater opportunity to develop nuanced ideas and thinking. And I simply don’t see why the BBC can’t be doing that in the area of religion, in a new media landscape with the public service vision”.
‘Catastrophe leaving religious broadcasting at crisis point’
The briefing brought together commentators and broadcasters engaged in religious broadcasting.
Roger Bolton, journalist and broadcaster, reminded the briefing of “the catastrophe” that original content on religion and ethics at peak-time on all public service broadcasting platforms, had fallen by 85 per cent between 2011 and 2022. At the BBC, such content fell by 65 per cent.
He explained successive funding cuts had left the BBC 30 per cent down on income over the last ten years. But this has meant “we’re at a crisis point”.
He had hoped the BBC would be a leading advocate in the debate on public service broadcasting, on the importance and the need for it and then how this could be met. But he said the BBC was not leading the debate at all.
The green paper consultation should involve the BBC saying to the public “This is what we need to do”.
He warned the BBC is in danger of being created as a business that will survive in the future, instead of being “our prime vehicle of public service content”.
He called for a strategic shift: “This requires a strategic overview within the BBC about the potential and importance of public service broadcasting in terms of religion and ethics”, but he said there was a lack of a strategic head of religion at the BBC.
The BBC had a very good commissioning editor for religion television, but ideas had to be pitched to a committee which assessed them according to the impact the programme was likely to make. He concluded “So you’re getting a market oriented BBC, where you should have a public service”.
He said church leaders and others should demand a charter debate about the role of religion and public service broadcasting, and they should not automatically support the BBC “until it starts to put forward its policies”.
Addressing religious literacy
Roger Bolton addressed the lack of religious literacy among many journalists who, he said, tend to be sceptical and to not properly understand the importance of religion. There was a lack of knowledge about what religion is and how it is practised.
There are some within the BBC who do understand religion, he said, but the BBC should continually educate its journalists on religion, as it would do on economics.
The briefing was told that the specialist religion department in Salford does have staff who understand religion, and many have theology degrees, but there is a lack of religious literacy in other areas.
Alex Strangwayes-Booth, formerly senior producer on religion for the BBC’s local radio network, said the lack of religious literacy at the BBC meant religion was not covered well outside the specialist area.
She made the point that the BBC jettisoned local knowledge of religion when it axed BBC local radio Sunday morning religious shows from 40 to 14, and with this went presenters who had spent years gaining knowledge and contacts among religious groups in their area.
A former BBC news producer said his experience was that it was difficult to sell religious stories to TV editors, because they were unaware of the impact and significance of the stories to the audience. It was less so on Radio 4 where journalists understood the importance of religion to their listeners.
Public service broadcasting on digital platforms
Alison Green, head of digital at the production company CTVC, said there is a fear that any changes to the licence fee, or lack of funding, would lead to fewer religious programmes and massively impact the audiences who would see the content.
CTVC makes religious programming for the BBC across multiple channels – BBC One, BBC Two, BBC World Service, Radio Three, Radio Four, Bite size. This is across a huge age range and broad audience.
Anna McNamee, executive director of the Sandford St Martin Trust, said when considering moving BBC content onto digital platforms like YouTube, the key issue is how to make public service content prominent there.
She said “I think that is absolutely critical when we when we talk about moves into online, digital spaces. How do we protect the integrity of the public service that is being delivered, and make sure that it is accessible to people, but also that they can find it if they want it.”
Recent research with the University of Leeds showed that finding content about religion on any of those platforms is actually quite difficult to do, even on BBC iplayer, which has a “Faith & Hope” section.
She asked whether this should be part of what is expected from public service broadcasters – to educate, inform and entertain, but to also make prominent the core public service content, to make it easily accessible.
She said that religious broadcasting had always been fundamental to the BBC, there at its founding. But there had been a downward trajectory in output and she believed the BBC could do better.
Changes to content on digital platforms
Anna McNamee said the question posed in the green paper on the BBC Charter Review was how it could be “fit for purpose” moving into the future, given all the changes in technology and social media platforms, but also changes in society.
The consultation was an opportunity to look at what we wanted the BBC to be “in terms of the world we live in”, what modern Britain and the world looks like through a religious or faith lens.
“What do we want for the future?”, she asked. “I would argue that we go back to the core principles of the BBC. What we want is something, when it comes to religion, which is ambitious and bold and quality programming.
“We want big, ambitious, exciting ideas like ‘Everyman’ (a TV programme), which is an old idea. But something like that, which is fit for the times we live in now”.
Alison Green, from CTVC, said there is a sense that light religious programming is easier to get commissioned, but on YouTube, there is an appetite for journalistic content, both as films and podcasts, and the audience was much more likely to access that content.
She said it is very difficult to make money from YouTube unless you have a huge following, quoting suggestions that 20 million views a month were needed to create any meaningful revenue.
Representation of all faith groups
Another area considered in the briefing was the proper representation of all religious groups in Britain. The Bishop of Salford, John Arnold, from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said the BBC is generally doing good work, and he appreciated the theological variety that it offers, but also religion seen in drama and entertainment such as pilgrimages.
There were great opportunities, including to build a sense of collaboration in a cosmopolitan society: “We could do so well, I think, in helping people of different faiths to understand one another, through showing what we believe in common. We may express it in different ways, but to show a respect for the diversity of faiths in our society at the moment, and also to give that lead to those young people who, it seems, right across the board, in terms of Christianity, are showing an increased interest in in faith and in some sort of affiliation to a Christian church”.
Several speakers raised the issue of representation. Anna McNamee said feedback from minority British faith groups was that they did not see themselves reflected, or they didn’t feel they were engaged with the programming.
Roger Bolton said there were concerns over whether British Muslims were represented well. A Sikh representative said the media was only interested in the Vaisakhi festival or other events, but there were so many other elements to their faith which were not reflected well.
Archbishop Stephen echoed concerns from other faith communities for their “almost invisibility in some areas of broadcasting, or seen as a kind of quaint, exotic”.
Rabbi Jonathan Romain said the BBC has an important role in general knowledge and social cohesion, “to understand the person in the desk, in the classroom, or the person living in the house opposite, or whoever you meet in the street”.
He raised another area of concern – trust. “I think there has been a lot of diminution of trust in the BBC, certainly from the Jewish community”.
He asked: “What does it say about an institution that’s supposed to be rooted in impartiality, that all staff have to do mandatory antisemitism training?” And he raised recent complaints over misrepresentation or tropes in broadcasts which the Jewish community has raised with the BBC. He concluded it needs to do much more to gain trust.
A question was raised about the census results which showed a rise in “non religion” and whether the BBC was adequately reflecting this.
Anna McNamee said “quite a lot of the BBC deals with non-belief. Whether or not we have to basically prove a negative, seems the wrong question in this instance”.
For Rabbi Jonathan, the census results “could be an excuse for lessening religious broadcasting, whereas actually we are still a multi faith society”.
The BBC said it was unable to take part in the briefing as it was too soon in the Charter review process, and the BBC is yet to respond officially to the green paper consultation.
When The Telegraph reported the briefing, the BBC gave them this statement: “The BBC delivers an unrivalled range of ambitious, timely and thought-provoking religion and ethics content across TV, radio and online. The BBC is responsible for the vast majority of the UK’s religious programming – far exceeding, by our own choice, what we are required to do. Our programming not only represents faith and world beliefs, but includes a wide range of perspectives, including those who are agnostic or atheist. It recognises the vital role religion, faith and beliefs play in connecting communities and in helping people to understand the beliefs of others.”
Details of the green paper and the link to the BBC consultation document is here. The deadline is 10 March 2026.
