London, England, Apr 26, 2007 / 08:52 am
A Catholic and an Anglican bishop have jointly called on the BBC to include religion on Radio 1, describing the omission as the “most striking exclusion of religion from the BBC 's output.”
Bishop Nigel McCulloch of Manchester, senior Church of England spokesman on communications, and Bishop John Arnold, chair of the Strategic Communications Board, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, responded to the BBC Trust's consultation on its Service Licenses and Purpose Remits. The consultation is intended to help the Trust to govern BBC output.
The bishops said the Trust sometimes includes religion under its duty to “reflect the nations, regions and communities of the UK and sometimes does not.”
"Religion figures strongly in the output of Radio 2, 3, and 4 under the proposed licenses for individual BBC services, but it does not appear under Radio 1,” the bishops noted. They argue that the exclusion of religion from Radio 1 is not only illogical but also inconsistent.