Programmes which do not interest you

I am being serious. To pick a completely random example, is anybody interested in discussing religious programmes?

If they are there is nothing stopping them making a thread about it. The fact that there isn't a thread already (or at least hasn't been for a long time) suggests that no-one has wanted to discuss it yet.

I'm sure if anything interesting ever happens on Songs of Praise , pres-wise, it'll get brought up. It doesn't seem likely to get an overhaul, though.

Apart from the higher-numbered satellite channels, is there even any other primarily religious programming these days?

There's so many programmes that I dislike, but I have a remote control.

There's a few radio stations in the 0xxx series of the Sky EPG.
There's the Easter Ceremony that goes out on BBC One during, well, I think it goes out at Easter and then you have Carols from Kings at Christmas and then Easter from Kings.

BBC Two and Four occasionally feature them but the days of Highway with Harry Secombe every Sunday night are gone, I have to say. Songs of Praise may be one of, if not the, last bastions in this area with regards to regular programming.

Ireland with Simon Reeve was a BBC Religion production.

It's sometimes quite surprising to think that it's really not many years ago that routine OBs from church services occupied the Sunday schedules on BBC One and ITV. These days, Songs of Praise is really the only one left. Whereas in the past this would have been a full Outside Broadcast with a scanner and pedestal mounted cameras, tonnes of lighting equipment and so on, these days I gather it's often much more scaled down (though there are still full blown OBs.) I believe they've used One Box Television in the past - which is a 'flyaway' approach to Outside Broadcasting and worth a look if you're interested in that kind of thing.
http://www.oneboxtelevision.co.uk/

Some other former religious programmes from the past: Praise Be! (a kind of greatest hits of Songs of Praise compliation, presented by Thora Hird), This Is the Day, Morning Service ... any others ?

Am I right in thinking that much like SwapShop/Superstore OBs there was often a correlation between which church service was covered and the previous day's football coverage so they could work into the same terrestrial links?

There are some nice recollections here from the days before mobile VT when recorded multi camera OBs needed to be linked back to somewhere with VT facilities

http://wiki.tx.mb21.co.uk/index.php?title=Songs_of_Praise,_Budleigh_Salterton

Yes, I have also heard that Swap Shop/Superstore would often use links that had been put in place for other OBs and piggy back on them. Wouldn't happen today without an enormous amount of paperwork, cost codes and virtual money being shoved around, plus of course the OB department itself isn't BBC-run any more.

Eastenders. So boring.

Songs of Praise did change format recently, actually. Instead of coming from just one place, it now features a selection of VTs and then hymns from a variety of places, from the BBC library of hymns. They are still making recordings of hymns (I took part in one just a month or so ago) but you'd imagine that it is substantially cheaper for them to do the 'religious One Show with hymns' format rather than coming from a single place each week.

The Songs of Praise production team put on the live TV transmissions of services for Christmas, Easter and Pentecost and there's also the annual Midnight Mass live transmission, plus the King's productions, as you say, Neil.

I remember ITV's Christmas service in 2012 - it was obviously a pre-record, far more populist than the BBC's production. It even featured a vicar called Michael Jackson!

My Favourite Hymns, there was also a strange programme with Esther Rantzen in it which was broadcast int between Sunday service. im sure it wasn't Jesus 2000, that Esther or Sunday mornings???

Scotland never broadcast many of those series instead opting out for there own made programmes like Eikon or eye to eye. I dont believe STV nor Grampian took My Favourite Hymns

Back in the late 70's and 80s STV and Grampian biggest show on a Sunday morning at 10am was Sesame street. Go figure, i think there did have one church service once a month for a 30min slot around 11.30.