AT ONE stage in my life I became a television expert in violence, filth, blasphemy and bonking. I was the Vice-Chairman of the BBC from 1981-86 and the first Chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Council from 1989-94. From ten years as a broadcasting regulator I learnt that one should never comment on a programme one had not seen; it is the sure way to make a fool of oneself. On Saturday I watched Jerry Springer, The Opera.

Two criticisms have been made of the BBC’s decision to screen this show, even late at night on BBC Two. One is the excessive use of bad language; the other, the blasphemous portrayal of religious figures, particularly of Jesus. Up to 45,000 people complained to the BBC before the show went out.

The show is divided into two acts. The first is a parody of the Jerry Springer Show. I thought this was a theatrical failure. The original show is indeed a worthless and cruel example of confessional television, but it is so highly exaggerated that it parodies itself. Jerry Springer, The Opera started at 10pm: I found myself looking at my watch at 10.10, again at 10.15, and a third time by 10.20.

This part of the show used endless repetition of bad language to little point. At the Broadcasting Standards Council we did considerable research into the widespread objections that viewers, particularly women, were making to excessive use of such language. Bad language was more often complained about than either sex or violence. Their objections were based on the appropriateness of language.

Language that is acceptable in the office, the factory or the schoolyard may be regarded as inappropriate in the home; television is a medium for home viewing. Mothers think that it is their responsibility, not that of broadcasters, to teach their children how and where to use language. Bad language can be shocking because it implies hooliganism and aggression.

This tells against the BBC’s decision to screen Jerry Springer, The Opera. The BBC, which still claims to have a civilising mission, ought to have a consistent bias against anti-cultural language. However, this was a programme late at night. It is perhaps defensible that the BBC should occasionally reserve a late-night ghetto for those metropolitan sophisticates who find the repetition of the F word a liberating breach of taboos.

My objection to the first act was that it was a ten-minute sketch stretched to an hour on air; that may be a bad professional blunder, but it is not a matter for the BBC governors. The second act was somewhat more interesting. It centred on a confrontation between Jesus and the Devil, with interventions by Adam and Eve, Mary and God the Father. Jerry Springer was the interlocutor.

The objection to this was that it was blasphemous. It certainly lacked dramatic force; it was not portrayed as a challenging conflict between good and evil; Jesus was babyish and Satan as unthreatening as a cup of Ovaltine.

The Director-General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, is quoted as saying: “I’m a practising Christian but there is nothing in this I perceive to be blasphemous.” As the second act shows Eve fondling Jesus’s genitals, while Jesus suffers from an infantile complex and is dressed in nappies, most people would take a different view.

In terms of public policy, which is the concern of Parliament and the regulators, including the BBC governors, the question is whether the BBC ought to be broadcasting blasphemous attacks on any religion. Religious discussion and debate is, of course, part of the BBC’s normal remit.

This is not primarily an issue of legality. I do not doubt that Jerry Springer, The Opera breaches the existing law on blasphemy, but I cannot imagine that any jury would convict. The question is, I think, a broader one. Does a public service broadcaster, financed by a universal poll tax, owe a duty of respect to the various religions of its viewers? That is a matter for the governors. At present the BBC is afraid of Islam, but feels completely free to mock Christianity.

The BBC governors have recently dismissed a popular, if populist, Director-General, Greg Dyke, for mishandling his response to Alastair Campbell’s bullying. This arose from an issue which clearly was the BBC’s business, the truthfulness of the Government about the intelligence before the invasion of Iraq. Lord Hutton’s sadly inadequate report found wholly against the BBC, whose reports, while flawed, proved to have substantial justification. In common prudence, the governors cannot now fire another Director-General, however silly they might judge him to have been. Jerry Springer, The Opera is Mr Thompson’s responsibility; he decided that blasphemy, the vulgar mockery of Jesus, is a legitimate part of the BBC’s public service remit. He is wrong.

By so doing, the Director-General raised the one question the BBC has never been able to answer. Why should people be compelled to buy the BBC’s services if they do not want to do so? Christians were burning their licences yesterday — and why not? Muslims might have been burning more than their licences if their Prophet had been similarly introduced.

If the licence fee is to survive for another ten years — which is still doubtful — there needs to be a legal obligation for the BBC to respect all the national religions. Blasphemy is not acceptable from a publicly funded broadcaster. Some people may think that Jerry Springer, The Opera was redeemed by its final message: “Nothing is wrong, and nothing is right. And anything that lives is holy. And in conclusion, F. you. F. you all.”

What rubbish that is. “F. you all” is the agenda of nihilism. The idea that there is no wrong and no right implies moral anarchy, or moral dementia. Yet I doubt if Jerry Springer, The Opera will matter all that much. Its callow sophistication is too repulsive. However, it makes me ashamed of the BBC, and the BBC does matter.

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