The question of the coverage of religion is vexed. It's useful to compare how it has fared on TV and radio. This week ABC TV's Compass celebrates its 21st birthday. In the fickle and faddish world of television that's quite an achievement.
But there is a certain irony and sadness in the anniversary. While the longevity of the flagship religious program on TV is being lauded, the religious flagship program of ABC Radio has been axed. I refer of course to the cancellation of The Religion Report, and I use the words 'irony' and 'sadness' advisedly.
First, the irony. Although TV is an intellectually shallow medium, radio deals well with sustained presentation and discussion of ideas. Television struggles to present complex and abstract ideas, beliefs and values. Driven by visual narrative, TV has other strengths. It presents story, emotion and personality well. So in dealing with and presenting religious experience, perhaps it's the more powerful medium.
When I was trying to entice serious religious commentators to appear on TV, they often voiced concerns about being trivialised, or complained that they couldn't possibly express themselves in a 15 second interview grab. I always responded that while TV overall may be shallow, at least Compass is the deep end of the shallow pool.
So it's ironic that serious coverage of religion is being celebrated on ABC TV, while being purged from radio. But in television religion has always been on the margins, while being mainstream in radio, at least on Radio National.
For its first three years, Compass aired at midday on Sunday. It took quite some arguing with management to shift it to Sunday evening.
Even now with its floating timeslot, usually 10–10.30 p.m., sometimes later, it's difficult to build a regular viewership. The constant complaint from viewers is, 'Why is Compass on so late? Can't it screen earlier?' The quality of the program has been increasingly recognised by ABC management, and there have been successful attempts at some periods to schedule it at 9.30 p.m.
On the other hand, on ABC Radio a raft of religious programs has always aired in mainstream timeslots. As well as The Religion Report, the schedule has included Spirit of Things, Encounter, The Ark, Rhythm Divine and, on ABC Local Radio, Sunday Night with John Cleary. So Compass tries to achieve on television what this range of programs does on radio.
One way of looking at this anomaly between TV and