BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the state media outlet British Broadcasting Corporation. The service provides national radio stations covering the majority of musical genres, as well as local radio stations covering local news, affairs and interests. It also oversees online audio content.
Stephen Rea is an Irish actor of stage and screen. Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he began his career as a member of Dublin’s Focus Theatre, and came to the attention of film audiences as one of the close collaborators of director Neil Jordan. He is an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and Tony Award nominee, a two-time BAFTA Award winner, and a three-time Irish Film and Television (IFTA) Award winner.
BBC Northern Ireland is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs" in the United Kingdom by campaigning on issues relating to humanism, secularism, and human rights. It seeks to act as a representative body for non-religious people in the UK.
Religious broadcasting, sometimes referred to as faith-based broadcasts, is the dissemination of television and/or radio content that intentionally has religious ideas, religious experience, or religious practice as its core focus. In some countries, religious broadcasting developed primarily within the context of public service provision, whilst in others, it has been driven more by religious organisations themselves. Across Europe and in the US and Canada, religious broadcasting began in the earliest days of radio, usually with the transmission of religious worship, preaching or "talks". Over time, formats evolved to include a broad range of styles and approaches, including radio and television drama, documentary, and chat show formats, as well as more traditional devotional content. Today, many religious organizations record sermons and lectures, and have moved into distributing content on their own web-based IP channels.
Thought for the Day is a daily scripted slot on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 offering "reflections from a faith perspective on issues and people in the news", broadcast at around 7:45 each Monday to Saturday morning. Lasting 2 minutes and 45 seconds, it is a successor to the five-minute religious sequence Ten to Eight (1965–1970) and, before that, Lift Up Your Hearts, which was first broadcast five mornings a week on the BBC Home Service from December 1939, initially at 7:30, though soon moved to 7:47. The feature is mainly delivered by those involved in religious practice; often, these are Christian thinkers, but there have been numerous occasions where representatives of other faiths, including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism, have presented Thought for the Day.
William Crawley, MRIA, is a Belfast-born BBC journalist and broadcaster. He is the presenter of Talkback, a daily radio programme on BBC Radio Ulster, and he is a presenter of Sunday on BBC Radio 4. He has also made several television series for BBC Northern Ireland.
Alexander Barnett Goldberg is the Dean of Religious Life and Belief, Coordinating and the Jewish Chaplain to the University of Surrey, England, a rabbi, barrister, and human rights activist.
Martin Giles Palmer is a theologian, Sinologist, author and international specialist on all major faiths and religious traditions and cultures. He is the Founding President and Chief Executive of FaithInvest, an international not-for-profit membership association for religious groups and faith-based institutional investors, which empowers faith groups to invest in line with their values. FaithInvest grew out of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC) of which Palmer was Secretary General from 1995 to 2019. Palmer is also the Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture (ICOREC).
Richard Holloway FRSE is a Scottish writer, broadcaster and cleric. He was the Bishop of Edinburgh from 1986 to 2000 and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church from 1992 to 2000.
Beyond Belief is a radio programme on the subject of religion, broadcast on BBC Radio 4. The show typically runs for 30 minutes, and features representatives of different faith traditions discussing a religious or moral issue. The programme, hosted by Ernie Rea, was first broadcast on 7 January 2002. The 200th edition was broadcast on 29 June 2009. On 15 July 2019, a special edition, looking at the relationship between religious faith and imagination, came from the Hay-on-Wye festival.
Shaunaka Rishi Das is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (OCHS), a position he has held since the centre's foundation in 1997. He is a lecturer, a broadcaster, and Hindu Chaplain to Oxford University. His interests include education, comparative theology, communication, and leadership. He is a member of The Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, convened in 2013 by the Woolf Institute, Cambridge. In 2013 the Indian government appointed him to sit on the International Advisory Council of the Auroville Foundation. Keshava, Rishi Das's wife of 27 years, died in December 2013.
Broadcasting House, Belfast is the headquarters of BBC Northern Ireland and operates many of its broadcasting services. The building is located on Ormeau Avenue in Belfast city centre, at the junction with Bedford Street. Public tours of the building are available.
The media in Northern Ireland are closely linked to those in the rest of the United Kingdom, and also overlap with print, television, and radio in the Republic of Ireland.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights in Northern Ireland have traditionally been slower to advance than the rest of the United Kingdom, with the region having lagged behind England, Scotland, and Wales. Northern Ireland was the last part of the United Kingdom where same-sex sexual activity was decriminalised, the last to implement a blood donation “monogamous no waiting period” policy system for men who have sex with men and, after intervention by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the last to allow same-sex marriage. Compared to the neighbouring Republic of Ireland, all major LGBT rights milestones had been reached earlier in Northern Ireland, with the exception of same-sex marriage. Homosexuality was decriminalised in Northern Ireland a decade earlier and civil partnerships were introduced six years earlier.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Northern Ireland since 13 January 2020, following the enactment of the Northern Ireland Act 2019. The first marriage ceremony took place on 11 February 2020. Civil partnerships have also been available for same-sex couples in Northern Ireland since their introduction by the Government of the United Kingdom in 2005.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current state with its current name on New Year's Day 1927. The oldest and largest local and global broadcaster by stature and by number of employees, the BBC employs over 21,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 17,900 are in public-sector broadcasting.
Edward Kessler is the Founder President of The Woolf Institute, a leading thinker in interfaith relations, primarily Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations, a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge as well as a Principal of the Cambridge Theological Federation and Convenor of the Commission on the Integration of Refugees.
The Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life (CORAB) was convened in 2013 by The Woolf Institute. Its purpose was to consider the place and role of religion and belief in contemporary Britain, to consider the significance of emerging trends and identities, and to make recommendations for public life and policy. Its premise was that in a rapidly changing diverse society everyone is affected, whatever their private views on religion and belief, by how public policy and public institutions respond to social change.
The Christian Broadcasting Association (CBA) is a New Zealand non-profit radio production company, set up to produce Christian programmes for secular radio stations and non-Christian audiences. It predominantly produces programmes for Newstalk ZB and Radio Sport. According to the association's website, it aims to "share the heart of the Christian faith in mainstream media".
