Songs of Praise

Presenters and contributors

Presenters of the show have included Geoffrey Wheeler, Michael Barratt, Cliff Michelmore, Sir Harry Secombe, Alan Titchmarsh, Roger Royle, Debbie Thrower, Bruce Parker, Ian Gall, Martin Bashir, Huw Edwards, Eamonn Holmes, Jonathan Edwards and Steve Chalke. Guest presenters have included Sir Cliff Richard, Gavin Peacock, Pete Waterman, Ann Widdecombe and the late Caron Keating.

The current main presenters are Aled Jones, David Grant, Bill Turnbull, Pam Rhodes, Sally Magnusson, Diane-Louise Jordan, Claire McCollum, Connie Fisher, Josie d'Arby and Dan Walker.

Format

From November 2014 the programme format changed, adopting more of a magazine format. The stated intention was to evolve the series to reflect the wider Christian audience across the country. Music remains at the heart of the series but is more varied in style, reflecting the broad range of Christian genres in each programme and across the series; there is no longer a single location where the music and stories come from each week. The series continues to be usually broadcast between 4 and 5pm on Sundays. This new format replaced the previous version which included congregations from churches and cathedrals singing hymns whilst the presenter explores that week's theme, all from the same location. The new format continues with special programmes marking Easter and Remembrance Sunday as well as the popular two Big Sing programmes from the Royal Albert Hall and the School Choir of the Year contest. The more recent Gospel Choir of the Year began recording in Birmingham Town Hall in 2013 and in 2014 was recorded at The Hackney Empire in London.

The show has included interviews with Tony Blair, Frances Shand Kydd, Alan Ayckbourn and members of the British Royal Family.

Programming

At its inception in October 1961, the programme was broadcast at 18:15. From September 1962, it moved to 18:50, and then to 18:40 from April 1977. Religious programming was also broadcast on ITV in the same timeslot, but this custom ceased at the end of 1992. From January 1993, the programme's scheduled broadcast time was changed to 18:25 and then 18:10 from January 1996. Since then, the time of broadcast has tended to shift slightly earlier, but the precise slot has often varied from week to week.

For many years, the series was replaced during the summer months by other Christian-themed programming. From 1977 until 1993, a selection of hymns from the previous year's shows, linked by Thora Hird reading requests and dedications, was featured in Your Songs of Praise Choice, which changed its name to Praise Be! in the 1980s. Other summer replacements included Home on Sunday (1980–88) and Sweet Inspiration (1993–94).

Each year since 2003, three consecutive weeks of the programme (usually in April) have been devoted to the 'School Choir of the Year' competition - the first two weeks being semi-finals featuring junior and senior school choirs respectively, with the final of both categories in the third week.

Events

Events have included a 3 October 1982 broadcast from Strangeways Prison (the first time it had broadcast from a prison), a 2 January 1983 broadcast from the Falkland Islands, and a broadcast from St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.

A competition was held in honor of the 20th anniversary in which people submitted newly written hymns. Fifteen winners were published in a book New Songs of Praise I.

The programme staged its largest event at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff on the first Sunday of 2000. A live audience of over 60,000 people came to sing hymns, with a 6,000 piece choir, an orchestra of 100 harps, the band of the Welsh Guards and an anthem specially written by Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber. The programme was produced by John Forrest (Producer-Director). Ian Bradley said the event had a "wonderful vulgarity" but that it also had an "infectious sense of community"

The Easter 2007 edition of the show had been recorded at the same time as the Christmas 2006 edition of the show at Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire in order to cut costs - with simple changes in lighting and flowers to reflect the two major services. The Bishop of Lichfield said the early recording was not a "deliberate deceit" but would give "an air of unreality" to the Easter programme, while a BBC spokeswoman said it was "common practice" to film two shows at once due to the costs in setting up lighting rigs, especially in a large cathedral.

The 16 August 2015 broadcast, filmed at an Ethiopian Orthodox church in the Calais jungle, received criticism from the media including the Daily Express, who stated the BBC was "out of touch" and that the show had "political propaganda". In response, the Bishop of Leeds Nick Baines and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby defended the BBC's decision as reflecting the Church's teachings on poverty. Meanwhile, Rev. Steve Chalke, former Songs of Praise presenter and well-known Christian social activist, wrote: "The programme's producers have been lambasted on social media as well as by sections of the press and a handful of politicians for 'wasting taxpayer's money' and, for that greatest of all religious sins, of 'becoming political'. In my view, however, tackling this complex humanitarian issue is exactly what Songs of Praise should be doing. The role of the television show, which is essentially about Christian faith, means the only way in which it can authentically fulfil its mandate is to deal with the tough issues of life, alongside the joys, faced by individuals as well as whole communities. Back in the '90s I was a presenter for Songs of Praise. Amongst the shows that I remain most proud of were those we made in South Africa, soon after Nelson Mandela was elected president, about the struggle against Apartheid, and another special programme I co-presented with Sally Magnusson the weekend after the Dunblane school massacre."

Reception and impact

In the early 1990s, the weekly viewership of the show was about twenty-five per cent of the British population. In 1998, the average viewership was between 5 and 6 million. Because of the long time airing of Songs of Praise following the Sunday evening news, the time slot has become known as the "God slot". The show has been accused of "abandon[ing] its long-standing commitment to straightfoward hymns and 'ordinary' people talking about their often very extraordinary lives and faith and becoming increasingly obsessed with celebrities and soft-focus schmaltz".

The show featured in episodes of the BBC comedy television series The Vicar of Dibley.

The show is also broadcast in Australia on the ABC at 11:30am on Sundays.

Competitive Tender

In 2016, as part of their new charter agreement, the BBC announced that they would put all their programmes which were due for recommission out to competitive tender over an eleven year period, with independent companies invited to bid to make the shows. A Question of Sport was the first programme to go through this process with BBC Studios winning the commission and retaining the rights to make the show in house. Songs of Praise followed shortly after but on 10th March 2017 it was announced that the tender had been won by two independent production companies; Avanti Media based in Cardiff and Nine Lives Media located in Manchester who would be producing the show for the next three years as a co-production.