Ofcom will continue to collect data on religious broadcasting “for the foreseeable future”
from Religion Media Centre:
The Media Bill going through parliament will end the requirement on public service broadcasters (PSBs) to include specific genres of programmes on religion, science and arts. Concerns have been raised that without a legal requirement, broadcasters will stop providing programmes in these “at risk” areas.
In a Religion Media Centre briefing, the Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines, said metrics were needed to measure how PSBs abide by obligations to reflect all of society. He said the Culture Secretary, Lucy Frazer, was asked about this in a recent Communications and Digital Select Committee of the House of Lords, but she ducked the question and said they hadn’t really thought about what the metrics would be.
Currently, Ofcom collates reports from each public service broadcaster on “at risk” categories and publishes the results annually.
Ofcom has issued a statement saying monitoring will continue: “At the moment we do not plan to stop collecting data on genres, including hours of religious programming, for the foreseeable future. This is because we still have duties to ensure that PSBs are meeting the needs and satisfying the interests of as many different audiences as practicable”.
View the briefing again on YouTube here or listen to our podcast here.
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