The BBC has said it was wrong to believe the punk duo Bob Vylan were “suitable for live streaming with appropriate mitigations” for their performance at Glastonbury festival, despite ranking them as “high risk” before the event.
In a statement signalling there would be repercussions for those behind the failure, the corporation said: “We fully understand the strength of feeling regarding Bob Vylan’s live appearance at Glastonbury on the BBC.
“Bob Vylan were deemed high risk following a risk assessment process applied to all acts appearing at Glastonbury. Seven acts including Bob Vylan were included in this category and they were all deemed suitable for live streaming with appropriate mitigations.
“Prior to Glastonbury, a decision was taken that compliance risks could be mitigated in real time on the live stream – through the use of language or content warnings – without the need for a delay. This was clearly not the case.
“During the performance, the live stream was monitored in line with the agreed compliance protocols and a number of issues were escalated. Warnings appeared on the stream on two occasions and the editorial team took the decision not to cut the feed. This was an error.
“Given the failings that have been acknowledged we are taking actions to ensure proper accountability for those found to be responsible for those failings in the live broadcast. We will not comment further on those processes at this time.
“Furthermore, as a result we will make immediate changes to live streaming music events. “Any music performances deemed high risk will now not be broadcast live or streamed live.”
Bobby Vylan, whose real name is Pascal Robinson-Foster, led chants of “Death, death to the IDF”, referring to the Israel Defense Forces, at Glastonbury last Saturday.
The BBC initially placed a warning on screen for viewers, but later said it regretted not intervening by pulling the live stream. The BBC director general, Tim Davie, was at the festival in the hours after the set and ordered the content not to feature in any further BBC coverage, but technical issues meant it remained on the iPlayer for several hours.
More details soon …