Staff who could have cut Bob Vylan feed were at Glastonbury, BBC boss says

BBC employees with the authority to cut the live stream of Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance were among 550 members of staff at the festival, director general Tim Davie has said.

Ending the broadcast “was an option open to those on the ground on the day”, Davie wrote in a letter to the Commons’ culture select committee.

The punk duo led a chant of “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” and made other derogatory comments during the performance, prompting apologies from the BBC and Glastonbury, as well as triggering a police investigation.

BBC News understands a small number of senior staff were told to step back from their day-to-day duties on music and live events as a result.

The corporation has previously admitted failings after it emerged the band were deemed “high risk” prior to their performance.

While the feed was monitored and warnings appeared on screen, the broadcast – which went out on iPlayer – was not stopped after the band’s comments were made.

BBC chairman Samir Shah has said the decision not to pull the live feed was “unquestionably an error of judgement” after strong criticism of the corporation’s handling of the incident.

In a letter responding to questions submitted by Dame Caroline Dinenage, chairwoman of the Commons’ culture, media and sport committee, Davie disclosed how many BBC employees were at the festival.

He wrote: “There were 550 personnel working for the BBC at Glastonbury.

“Of these 328 were working for BBC Studios (camera crew, rigging, technical and production roles), 35 providing coverage for BBC News, and 187 other BBC public service, working across a wide range of roles, including technical crew, producers, presenters, engineers, runners, commissioners and compliance staff.”

Answering whether any had the ability to end the broadcast, Davie said: “Yes, there were individuals present at Glastonbury who had the authority to cut the livestream after appropriate consideration.

“Those individuals had access to advice and support offsite should they have considered it necessary.”

He did not specify how many of those present had the authority to pull the live stream, but said those capable of issuing “editorial policy support” would be deployed to music festivals and events in the future.

During the duo’s set, singer Pascal Robinson-Foster, who performs under the stage name Bobby Vylan, also made a speech about a record label boss he used to work for.

That boss would “speak very strongly about his support for Israel”, and had put his name to a letter urging Glastonbury to cancel Irish-language rap trio Kneecap’s performance, the musician said.

The singer said: “Who do I see on that list of names but that bald-headed [expletive] I used to work for? We’ve done it all, all right – from working in bars to working for [expletive] Zionists.”

After the media coverage of their set, Bob Vylan said in a statement: “We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine”.

Avon and Somerset Police have launched a criminal investigation into the band’s comments.