Jonathan Ross faced new criticism today over his £6million-a-year pay deal with the BBC - this time from church leaders.The Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales claimed the BBC should spend a similar amount of money on religious programming.
BBC1’s Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, with an audience of about four million weekly, is regarded as a ‘wild success’ meriting an £18million star, the churches said.
But Songs Of Praise, they said, on the same channel, with similar audience figures, is regarded as part of an ‘unprofitable genre’.
‘This seems to be a striking lack of consistency,’ the Rt Rev Nicholas Baines, Bishop of Croydon and the Rt Rev John Arnold, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, said in a submission to Ofcom, the media watchdog.
They added: ‘As we have said many times before, religious programmes suffer from a lack of investment, being scheduled at unpopular times and being given relatively little prominence.
‘It is clear that religious belief and practice is having a continuing and important influence in all aspects of life and the investment in this strand of programming should recognise their significance.’
The bishops’ remarks were made in a submission by both churches to Ofcom’s second consultation on public service broadcasting.
The churches argued that leaving the BBC as sole provider of public service media could lower media standards and provide ‘less meaningful’ news, information and other content.
They said: ‘Without more than one public service provider, there is the risk - which the BBC themselves recognise - that standards will fall, information is conveyed without the vital context and interpretation that makes it socially valuable and without the appeal to reach across social and age groups.’
A BBC spokesman said: 'We are pleased the Churches recognise that the BBC provides extensive religious and Christian programming.
'Whilst we put significant investment in high-quality Christian programming forming the cornerstone of our religious output, we are always looking at how we can improve our offer to audiences still further.
'We agree that plurality of religious programming provision is important in offering the best service to audiences.
'In addition to the regular religious programmes we provide such as 'Songs of Praise', 'Pause For Thought' and 'Thought for the Day', viewers can look forward to original and distinctive programmes like 'Around the World in 80 Faiths' and 'The History of Christianity'.'
The bishops’ remarks come after Ross was cleared last month to keep his BBC job despite being criticised by the corporation’s governing body over two offensive broadcasts.
The BBC Trust condemned an episode of Radio 2’s Russell Brand Show which included obscene messages left on the answerphone of Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs by Ross, 48, and Brand, 33.
The two presenters said Brand had slept with the 78-year-old actor’s granddaughter, Georgina Baillie, 23, and joked that Sachs might kill himself.
It also condemned an edition of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, in which the host said he would ‘f***‘ actress Gwyneth Paltrow if his wife permitted.
In the furore that followed the airing of the Sachs calls on October 18, Brand resigned and Ross was suspended without pay for 12 weeks.
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(Source: DMO)