Is nothing sacred? Obviously not minor details like the liturgical calendar if you're a TV producer of religious programmes. We hear that the Beeb's Songs of Praise recorded its Easter programme straight after its Christmas service at Lichfield Cathedral - both in November. But ITV is up to the same trick, having recorded its Easter Sunday service at the same time as a Christmas one in a church near Warrington.
It shouldn't really come as a surprise - if you think about it, why would a broadcaster want to go to all the trouble of expensively rigging up a cathedral twice when you can get both Christmas and Easter out of the way in one fell swoop? And messing with the seasons is hardly rare: I've been to the recording of Jools Holland's New Year's Eve programme a couple of times and that's in early December. It's a bit odd singing Auld Lang Syne when you haven't finished your Christmas shopping.
But all this does make you wonder why they bother anyway. Who watches Songs of Praise these days? I love Carols from Kings on Christmas Eve because I'm a softie and love Christmas and everything that goes with it; and my lapsed-Catholic stepmother insists on watching it even if the house is full of drunk relatives. But that's the only time in the year that I make a point of watching any religious broadcast.
So are we an increasingly irreligious bunch that has no need or wish for the archaic tradition of broadcasts from churches of people singing ponderous Victorian hymns? We've lost our sense of organised religion anyway: people pick hymns because they like the tune - why else would a bride choose Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, a Victorian temperance hymn, for her wedding?
Would we be letting go of something that's an important part of our national fabric if broadcasters finally ditched Songs of Praise and other religious programmes?
