While I would like advanced science programming, I think the BBC is not the right medium. Particularly, as the material gets sufficiently advanced, it targets a progressively smaller audience. At some point, it is better to have this on the internet than on TV.
It's the same logic as to why there aren't any interesting TV programs about, say, programming languages, but you can find good content on Channel 9 (not really a channel :P) or Google Tech Talks.
I agree with you, until I start comparing the amount of heavy duty arts programming on the BBC.
So, on BBC radio 4 you'll have A day set aside for "Bloom's Day", heavily promoted before hand, with James Joyces' Ulysses newly dramatised and broadcast over five and a half hours, in seven slots from 9:00am to midnight; and the cross-promotional stuff.
This is a considerable amount of time and money on a well known (but little read) book. And when you hear arts items on news programmes no-one stops to patronise the audience[1] yet anything that goes beyond very simple science on news is handled very gently, as if all the audience are idiots. I don't even mind that so much - but it's the lack of any programming at all that goes beyond the curriculum that a 15 year old would study that is problematic. Of course, there are notable exceptions, and I know that it'd be as bad or worse in other countries.
[1] They'll mention names of artists but not bother explaining any context; you're just expected to know that this person is a scupltor or has won some award or whatever; and you're expected to be aware of some of the main themes in their work.
Hmm, that's a fair point. And I have seen some programs about art history from the BBC that are probably rather advanced.
Perhaps it's a fundamental difference in the two fields? For something like Renaissance art, you can get away with not knowing too much about other sorts of art; on the other hand, for any sort of even moderately serious physics, not only do you need a good grasp of related physics but you also need a strong grasp of relatively advanced mathematics.
Also, thinking about it, it seems that CS is even more underrepresented than other sciences. At the very least, you see some shows about physics and cosmology and biology, however basic. But I've never seen even a painfully basic show about CS. There are shows about robotics, but more from an engineering standpoint than a CS standpoint. Math also seems rarer than the sciences, but I recall some math shows.
Of course, I watch any sort of TV very rarely, so I have a small sample with a distinct selection bias (namely, I mostly watch what other people in my family are interested in). This bias trivially explains the disproportionate amount of art history (my mother is an art teacher) but does not explain the complete dearth of CS.
It's the same logic as to why there aren't any interesting TV programs about, say, programming languages, but you can find good content on Channel 9 (not really a channel :P) or Google Tech Talks.