Holy day broadcasting cock-up

The BBC is to re-schedule a Radio 4 programme that looks at the work of the Community Security Trust after realising that the original transmission date was due to take place on the second night of Rosh Hashanah at 8pm.

Surely, you consult a calendar before announcing a transmission date for something that has importance to the community it is being made about?

I find it very hard to understand how the scheduling department at Radio 4 didn't realise that certain dates in the calendar are sensitive to the Jewish community.

Within the BBC, those involved in making programmes and deciding on dates and times to broadcast them will have access to multifaith calendars to avoid these types of cock-ups.

They could even visit the BBC Religion website to check dates on the very useful multifaith calendar at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/interactive/calendar/index.shtml

So what happened?

Even those Jews who are not very religious will generally focus their mind on spiritual issues during this time of year as well as spending the evening with family and friends, so is very unlikely to be near to a radio to listen to the programme.

But there is some good news, the broadcast will go out on October 9, the date of the original repeat which shouldn't cause any problems for Jews, let along followers of any other faith.

Comments

[Lior]

My point exactly. Michael Grade (who also happens to attend the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St Jonns Wood) would have armoured carriers take anyone home if he failed to instruct his minions to consult a Muslim calendar. Time and time and time and time again, anything to do with Judaism - and, more importantly, antipathetical criticisms of Israel, are broadcast at a time when observant Jews cannot watch - despite paying their licence fee to subsidize digital channels only the rich can watch - what liberalism! One mistake is a mistake - we're all human. Two mistakes is bad luck. Three mistakes and there's something wrong. Twenty years' worth of mistakes and I'm not wrong. There's something wrong - and it ain't in the State of Denmark.