There were BBC staff on site at the Glastonbury Festival last month with the authority to cut the live broadcast of Bob Vylan’s controversial set, but it's not yet clear if there was any actual discussion about cutting the feed as soon as the punk duo started leading the crowd in a chant of “death, death to the IDF”.
BBC boss Tim Davie has sent a letter to Parliament’s Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee answering various questions it posed about the broadcaster’s Glastonbury coverage this year, with MPs mainly interested in Bob Vylan’s on-stage statements in support of Palestine and their chant against the Israeli army.
However, the letter also stresses that an internal investigation is underway at the BBC to ensure “proper accountability” for those employees “found to be responsible for the failings in the live broadcast”, and that means Davie can’t respond to every query raised by the MPs.
One of the questions he shirks on that basis relates to whether or not cutting the livestream of Bob Vylan’s performance was discussed as it was happening.
The BBC boss says that question is “currently being considered through the appropriate internal processes”, but he can confirm that “cutting the livestream was an option open to those on the ground on the day”. And those BBC employees also had access to the broadcaster’s Editorial Policy team in Salford, as well as its lawyers.
Although the pro-Palestine chanting would presumably have been over by the time any BBC employee had consulted all those editorial and legal chiefs, given the performance was being broadcast live and seemingly without a time delay.
Elsewhere in his letter to MPs, Davie confirms that - “based on its previous experience” broadcasting from the music festival - the Beeb decided that its core Glastonbury coverage should air live, with just one exception, which was Kneecap’s set.
“A risk assessment was undertaken before the festival of the acts that were performing and how we should cover them”, he explains. “The risk assessment undertaken led to the BBC deciding that Kneecap’s performance should be recorded from the livestream, put through a compliance process and uploaded to iPlayer to be available on demand, but not streamed live”.
Kneecap’s performance was much anticipated, of course, following the controversies surrounding their set at the Coachella festival earlier this year, during which they projected some very pro-Palestine and anti-Israel statements onto screens.
While some commended Kneecap for using their platform in that way, others heavily criticised the group and called for their Glastonbury set to be cancelled or, at the very least, to not be broadcast by the BBC.
Seven other acts were identified by the BBC’s risk assessment process as being a cause for concern regarding potential offensive content, and that included Bob Vylan. However, it was decided that those acts could still be broadcast live, with “appropriate controls, warnings and mitigations in place as needed”.
This was all decided at a meeting on 10 Jun, Davie reveals. That meeting was attended by “senior figures in commissioning and editorial policy”, Davie adds, plus “the outcomes of the risk assessment were briefed to the senior commissioner and a senior editorial figure”. All of which might imply that a senior BBC exec will need to take the fall to allow the broadcaster to move on from all the outrage Bob Vylan sparked.
Davie’s letter also reiterates the new policies that the BBC plans to implement in the wake of Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance, including that “any music performances deemed high risk will now not be broadcast live or streamed live” and “more detailed, practical guidance on the threshold for withdrawing a livestream” will be provided to BBC teams.
Davie takes as a given that Bob Vylan's on-stage comments were unacceptable and antisemitic, and should never have been broadcast, even though some have defended the punk band.
“I want the committee to be left in no doubt of the seriousness with which I am treating what happened at Glastonbury and the need for swift action to minimise the risk of something similar occurring again”, the BBC boss writes, adding, “I deeply regret that such deplorable behaviour appeared on the BBC and want to apologise to our viewers and listeners and in particular the Jewish community”.
Davie will face questions from the CMS Select Committee in person on 9 Sep. We await to see if he’ll go into more detail about behind the scenes discussions during the Bob Vylan broadcast at that session.