Songs of Praise

Lore & Background

Until a format change in November 2014, the programme featured congregations from churches and cathedrals singing hymns alongside interviews with people from the church from which the programme was broadcast, all from the same location. The November 2014 change adopted a magazine format, with music more varied in style and no longer from a single location each week. The series continued to be usually broadcast between 4 and 5pm on Sundays; as of 2018 onwards, it has generally been broadcast in a lunchtime slot.

Songs of Praise was created under government regulations that from the autumn of 1972 required all television broadcasting on Sunday evenings from 6:15 pm–7:25 pm to be closed and used only for religious programming on both BBC and ITV. At its inception on 1 October 1961, the programme was broadcast at 6:30 pm. The series staged its largest event at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff on the first Sunday of 2000, featuring a choir of approximately 5,000 and an orchestra, but not 100 harps.

Reader's Guide

Songs of Praise holds significance as a long-running religious television programme that has adapted to changing broadcasting regulations and audience expectations. Its creation was shaped by government-mandated Sunday evening religious programming slots, and its scheduling has evolved from a 6:15 pm slot in 1961 to a lunchtime slot by 2021. The programme's format change in November 2014 reflected an intention to reach a wider Christian audience across the country, while maintaining music at its heart.

The programme has featured interviews with Tony Blair, Frances Shand Kydd, Alan Ayckbourn, and members of the British royal family. It has also faced controversy, such as the 16 August 2015 broadcast from an Ethiopian Orthodox church in the Calais jungle, which received criticism from media including the Daily Express, but was defended by the Anglican Bishop of Leeds and the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the early 1990s, the weekly reach was about 25% of the British population, and in 1998 the average viewership was between 5 and 6 million. The time slot following the Sunday evening news became known as the 'God slot'.

In 2016, as part of the BBC's new charter agreement, Songs of Praise was put out to competitive tender. On 10 March 2017 it was announced that the tender had been won by Avanti Media and Nine Lives Media as a co-production. In May 2022, Avanti and Nine Lives announced they would not renew their tender deal, with the BBC announcing they would look for a new company to produce the series.

Did You Know?

• The programme was first broadcast in October 1961 as the English-language version of the Welsh programme Dechrau Canu Dechrau Canmol.
• A competition was held for the 20th anniversary in which people submitted newly written hymns; fifteen winners were published in a book New Songs of Praise I.
• The Easter 2007 edition was recorded at the same time as the Christmas 2006 edition at Lichfield Cathedral to cut costs, with simple changes in lighting and flowers.
• The programme is also broadcast in Australia on the ABC at 11:30am on Sundays and in the Netherlands on NPO 2 at 12pm on Sundays.

Birth from Broadcast Restrictions

The programme that would become Britain's most enduring religious television series did not emerge from a creative vacuum but from a peculiar regulatory compromise. In the early 1950s, the Postmaster General mandated that Sunday evening television between 6:15 and 7:25 pm be reserved exclusively for religious content on both the BBC and ITV, a rule rooted in the fact that many viewers still attended evening church services. Until 1958, the slot was simply left dark. When a compromise was finally struck—religious programming could air provided no commercial advertising interrupted it—the BBC needed a flagship show to fill the hours. The result debuted in October 1961 as the English-language counterpart to the Welsh series Dechrau Canu Dechrau Canmol, with its very first edition filmed at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Cardiff. That modest beginning, broadcast at 6:15 pm, planted the seed for what is widely regarded as the longest-running religious television series of its kind anywhere in the world.

From Single Sanctuary to Magazine

For over five decades the formula was deceptively simple: one church, one congregation, one theme. Viewers watched a specific parish or cathedral singing through a set of hymns while the presenter interviewed members of that same community and explored the week's spiritual question, all captured in a single location. That approach held until November 2014, when the production team pivoted toward a magazine-style structure designed to mirror the full spectrum of British Christianity. Music still anchors every edition, yet the musical palette broadened considerably, drawing from multiple denominational traditions within a single programme rather than relying on one congregation's repertoire. The single-location constraint was dropped entirely. Alongside this structural shift, the broadcast slot drifted steadily earlier through the decades—from 6:15 pm at launch, through 6:50, 6:40, 6:25, and 6:10 pm—before settling into a permanent Sunday lunchtime position at 1:15 pm by 2021. Summer months were long filled by spin-off series such as Your Songs of Praise Choice and later Praise Be!, while flagship specials for Easter, Remembrance Sunday, and the Royal Albert Hall Big Sing continued as annual fixtures.

Spectacle and Sacred Ground

The series has repeatedly stepped beyond the four walls of a typical parish to stage events of extraordinary scale. A 1982 edition was recorded inside Strangeways Prison in Manchester; the following January brought a broadcast from the Falkland Islands; and another crossed the Atlantic to St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. The most ambitious undertaking came on the first Sunday of 2000, when the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff hosted a live audience exceeding 60,000 singers. The production, helmed by John Forrest, featured a 6,000-voice choir, an orchestra of 100 harps, the band of the Welsh Guards, and a bespoke anthem composed by Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber. Ian Bradley, writing about the spectacle, called it a "wonderful vulgarity" while simultaneously praising its "infectious sense of community." Since 2003, three consecutive April weeks have been devoted to the School Choir of the Year competition, with semi-finals for junior and senior divisions followed by a combined final. Even cost pressures have left their mark: the Easter 2007 edition was filmed simultaneously with the Christmas 2006 show at Lichfield Cathedral, a decision the local bishop described as lending the broadcast "an air of unreality."

Faith, Politics, and Public Scrutiny

Despite its devotional core, the programme has not been immune to the cultural storms that surround religion in public life. The August 2015 edition, filmed at an Ethiopian Orthodox church within the Calais migrant camp, ignited a fierce media backlash. The Daily Express accused the BBC of being "out of touch" and of producing "political propaganda," while social media and a handful of politicians condemned the producers for "wasting taxpayer's money" and committing, in one critic's phrasing, the "greatest of all religious sins" by "becoming political." The defence came quickly from within the Church itself: the Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, both endorsed the broadcast as consistent with Christian teaching on poverty. Reverend Steve Chalke, a former presenter and prominent Christian social activist, argued that confronting a complex humanitarian crisis was precisely the kind of work the show was designed to undertake. The episode crystallised a tension that has run through the series' history: how a programme rooted in worship and hymn-singing navigates the boundary between spiritual reflection and engagement with the world's most pressing social questions.