the first Sunday of 2000. A live audience of over 60,000 people came to sing hymns, with a 6,000 piece choir, an orchestra of 100 harps, the band of the Welsh Guards and an anthem specially written by Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber. The programme was produced by John Forrest. Ian Bradley said the event had a "wonderful vulgarity" but that it also had an "infectious sense of community" Each year since 2003, three consecutive weeks of the programme (usually in April) have been devoted to the School Choir of the Year competition – the first two weeks being semi-finals featuring junior and senior school choirs respectively, with the final of both categories in the third week. In order to cut costs, the Easter 2007 edition of the show was recorded at the same time as the Christmas 2006 edition of the show at Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire – with simple changes in lighting and flowers to reflect the two major services. The Bishop of Lichfield Jonathan Gledhill, said the early recording was not a "deliberate deceit" but would give "an air of unreality" to the Easter programme, while a BBC spokeswoman said it was "common practice" to film two shows at once due to the costs in setting up lighting rigs, especially in a large cathedral. The 16 August 2015 broadcast, filmed at an Ethiopian Orthodox church in the Calais jungle, received criticism from the media including the Daily Express, who stated the BBC was "out of touch" and that the show had "political propaganda". In response, the Anglican Bishop of Leeds Nick Baines and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby defended the BBC's decision as reflecting the Church's teachings on poverty. Meanwhile, the Reverend Steve Chalke, former Songs of Praise presenter and well-known Christian social activist, wrote: Reception and impact In the early 1990s, the weekly reach of the show was about 25% of the British population. In 1998, the average viewership was between 5 and 6 million. Because of the long-time transmission of Songs of Praise following the Sunday evening news, the time slot has become known as the "God slot". The show has been accused of "abandon[ing] its long-standing commitment to straightforward hymns and 'ordinary' people talking about their often very extraordinary lives and faith and becoming increasingly obsessed with celebrities and soft-focus schmaltz". The show featured in episodes of the BBC comedy television series The Vicar of