Decline in religious broadcasting

In 1949 French television regularly broadcast 1 hour 30 minutes of religious programming out of 16 hour output each week; by 1986 only 3 hours on Sunday morning, out of 680 hours weekly of television produced by six channels, were religious in content and inspiration. The percentage of weekly programme output had fallen from a respectable 10% to 0.5%. Across the world religious programmes have been pushed to the margins of the broadcasting system. In the USA there is little main-line religious programming on the national networks and the electronic church, for all its self-advertisement, has only a small minority, perhaps 7 million viewers. In Australia and New Zealand the churches are fighting to preserve the place of religion in the public broadcasting system. In most of the Third World churches are finding it ever more costly to ensure that even a limited amount of religious material is broadcast on a regular basis.