Aaqil Ahmed . . . the first Muslim to hold his post . . . The BBC's head of religion has accused the Church of England of "living in the past" and said that the corporation should not give Christianity preferential treatment.
-- From "Church of England is 'living in the past', says BBC's head of religion" by Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Media Correspondent, London Telegraph 2/6/10
He dismissed claims that the BBC was marginalising religion as overly simplistic and argued that Christianity, in particular, was already covered well on television.
Bishops, clergy and lay members of the General Synod will vote this week on a motion calling on the state broadcaster to explain why its television coverage of Christianity has declined so steeply in recent years.
Output has fallen from 177 hours of religious programming on BBC television in 1987/88 to 155 hours in 2007/08 - a period during which the overall volume of programming has doubled.
Church leaders have been particularly criticial of the dearth of religious programmes shown on BBC television at Easter, with the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, the Bishop of Manchester, accusing the corporation of "overlooking" Good Friday.
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