Church in a spin

If it had been in London it could have been a national news story. As it was, inviting Lord Adonis the schools minister to the beautiful, but 'north of watford' Rudding Park in North Yorkshire (where?) to deliver his important message, and on the day the BBC turns everything over to Children in Need, was probably a tactical mistake from a press point of view. He might sound like a Greek god (apparently his dad was Greek) but he might as well have been delivering a postcard.

Never mind, the local press would be on hand to cover it. Ah yes, the local press, with their unerring nose for news, their teams of reporters ready to move out at a moment’s notice. Is that Porky the pig flying overhead?

To be fair it wasn’t all plain sailing at our end. The Education Team were unwilling to let reporters cover the event, and then Andrew Adonis did a runner back to the metropolis and civilisation after coffee even though it had been fixed up for him to be at a lunchtime photocall. Ever felt like your pushing treacle up hill?. Mind you, had a nice chat with Ashley Peatfield, head of religion and ethics for BBC regions who recorded a few other people and got a free lunch as compensation for the early departure of the Lord and the late arrival of the MP (Phil Willis).

BBC Radio York couldn’t spare anyone to cover the event and had lost the press release I’d sent not 16 hours earlier. Brilliant. The cuts are already biting it seems.

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The Church Times continues to disappoint. Three stories sent to them last week. Bishop out on the streets with clubbers should have been of interest. Read all about it at http://www.riponleeds.anglican.org/. But not in the Church Times. Problem is the events were all in Leeds or North Yorkshire. Silly me. Not London you see. (At the Daily Telegraph meeting in London I keep harking back to, one journalist (who shall remain nameless) kept calling the rest of the country the Shires. The Shires!!!???? I ask you!)

Anyway, in the 'consistently disappointing Church Times', an interesting article by former religious producer Ted Harrison talking about the end of the BBC Empire as we know it and life without the license fee. Totally agree with his opening analyses. I’d only been talking at lunchtime with Ashley Peatfield about the way Manchester’s religious department was badly hit by these latest cuts, how it was losing its skilled TV producers and how religion was still being pushed to the edge of the schedules.

Not entirely sure though about Ted Harrison's suggested solutions. He recommends that when the BBC inevitably loses the license fee it should stagger on with pay-to-view programmes - like pay-to view choral evensong (really?) as a way of avoiding nasty religious tv programmes from the States. Well yes, but instead of looking at the worst of religious TV, how about looking for a change at some of the excellent stuff being produced by all digital stations like SAT2000 in Italy. Kick started by the Italian bishops conference ten years ago, it’s now consistently in the top ten TV stations in a country of digital TV and scantily clad, dumbed down wall-to-wall entertainment programmes. It produces hourly news, documentaries, debates, discussion, entertainment comedy, satire, youth and religious programmes with an underlying ethical stance, family values and a generally Christian viewpoint, but with slick professional high production values and without shoving doctrine down its viewers throats. It's not pay-to view. It carries (steady lads) adverts. Yes commercials. Ok, SAT 20000 is so popular that they can afford to be picky and have ethically vetted adverts. As someone asked, only a few weeks ago at the annual church communicators conference, what price CofE TV? The answer: - probably not as much as we think.