The BBC deemed punk duo Bob Vylan “high risk” before their outcry-sparking Glastonbury set, the U.K. public broadcaster said Thursday as it vowed to take action to prevent future controversies.
The British act has drawn outrage for chanting “death, death to the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces]” on the U.K. music festival’s West Holts stage.
After widespread condemnation from the likes of Glastonbury organizer Emily Eavis and U.K. prime minister Keir Starmer, who denounced the “appalling hate speech,” the BBC — Glastonbury’s TV partner — released a statement expressing its “regrets” for not pulling the live stream of the set.
Now, the BBC has vowed to take action to “ensure proper accountability.” BBC News reported that a number of staff members have been moved off their day-to-day duties from the music and live events team.
BBC chair Samir Shah said the decision not to pull the feed as it aired was “unquestionably an error of judgment.”
Meanwhile, BBC director-general Tim Davie has weighed in, saying he “deeply regrets that such offensive and deplorable behavior appeared on the BBC” and said he wanted to “apologize to our viewers and listeners, and in particular the Jewish community.”
The BBC said on Thursday that Bob Vylan were “deemed high risk following a risk assessment process applied to all acts appearing at Glastonbury,” and that seven acts were included in the category but deemed suitable for live streaming with “appropriate mitigations.”
The statement added: “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.”
The BBC explained that the live stream was monitored “in line with the agreed compliance protocols and a number of issues were escalated.” But when warnings appeared on the stream on two occasions, “the editorial team took the decision not to cut the feed. This was an error.”
Davie was “subsequently made aware of what had happened and instructed the team that none of the performance should feature in further coverage.”
Immediate changes being made to the BBC’s live streaming of music events include those deemed high-risk not being broadcast live, and more detailed, practical guidance on the threshold for withdrawing a live stream.
Shah apologized “to all our viewers and listeners and particularly the Jewish community for allowing the ‘artist’ Bob Vylan to express unconscionable anti-semitic views live on the BBC.”
The Hollywood Reporter reported earlier this week that the act has been dropped from Europe music festivals as well as from United Talent Agency, and their U.S. visas have been revoked.
Bob Vylan responded to the controversy via Instagram on Tuesday, saying they felt like they’d been “targeted for speaking up.”
“We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people,” Bob Vylan said. “We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine. We, like those in the spotlight before us, are not the story. We are a distraction from the story, and whatever sanctions we receive will be a distraction.”
