Roger Childs is Editor, RTÉ Religious Programmes – a brief which includes Radio, Television and Online content for Radio Telefís Éireann, the Irish National Public Service Broadcaster.
Roger joined RTÉ staff in October, 2007. He previously worked for the BBC for 16 years, including 14 years as a documentary maker and Series Producer for BBC Religion & Ethics. During this time he won a number of awards, including a Sony Radio Award, Royal Television Society Awards, a Sandford St Martin Prize and two WACC / Signis European Festival of Religious Broadcasting Awards. His television work, mainly for BBC One, ranged from studio magazines (The Heaven & Earth Show; What The World Needs Now) to documentaries (Everyman, Heart of the Matter); from discussions (Life, Etc) to drama (Florence Nightingale).
A graduate of the BBC’s prestigious Production Training Scheme, he spent periods on Newsnight, in Music & Arts, Light Entertainment and BBC Northern Ireland. He also worked previously on Channel 4 Music & Arts programmes (Rock Steady, Signals, Friday At The Dome) and served a 3-month internship with the flagship of the American PBS network, WNET / Channel 13, in New York.
He is a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied English.
At RTÉ, Roger has sought to consolidate and broaden the remit of religious broadcasting, to reflect the moral, religious and spiritual climate of today’s Ireland. In addition to the broadcaster’s Worship output, on radio and television, he has introduced a number of new strands, including Joe Duffy’s Spirit Level, The Meaning of Life, with Gay Byrne, iWitness and Marian Finucane’s series, Does God Hate…? – all on RTÉ One. September 2011 sees the launch of a new religious magazine on RTÉ Radio One, The God Slot, presented by Eileen Dunne. Roger has also sought to reinvigorate and re-focus RTÉ’s longest-running documentary series, Would You Believe?, through a mixture of narrative approaches to, including investigative journalism, observational portraits and studio discussions. In 2010, the series won a European Festival of Religious Broadcasting Prize.
