BBC deemed Bob Vylan ‘high risk’ before Glastonbury

The BBC had deemed Bob Vylan “high risk” before their controversial Glastonbury set on Saturday, the corporation has said.

The punk duo led a chant of “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” during their performance, which was available to watch via a live stream on iPlayer.

In a statement, the BBC said the corporation is taking action to “ensure proper accountability” for those found to be responsible for the broadcast.

BBC News understands that a number of staff 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 live feed was “unquestionably an error of judgement”.

The BBC said it would be making “immediate changes to livestreaming music events”.

In future, it said: “Any music performances deemed high risk by the BBC will now not be broadcast live or streamed live.”

After the broadcast, the BBC was criticised by the UK’s chief rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis, while media regulator Ofcom said the BBC had “questions to answer”.

In a statement to staff on Thursday, director general Tim Davie said he “deeply regrets that such offensive and deplorable behaviour appeared on the BBC and want to apologise to our viewers and listeners and in particular the Jewish community”.

The BBC said Bob Vylan had been “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.”

The statement continued: “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 noted 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, but, he added: “The editorial team took the decision not to cut the feed. This was an error.”

Davie, who was attending Glastonbury himself on the day, was “subsequently made aware of what had happened and instructed the team that none of the performance should feature in further coverage”.

The BBC said the team on duty prioritised stopping the performance from becoming available on demand, meaning that the set would not appear on iPlayer or BBC Sounds.

However, the live feed remained available for several hours, meaning viewers were able to rewind and view the content.

“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,” the BBC said. “We will not comment further on those processes at this time.”

In a statement, BBC chair Samir Shah apologised “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”.

“This was unquestionably an error of judgement. I was very pleased to note that as soon as this came to the notice of Tim Davie – who was on the Glastonbury site at the time visiting BBC staff – he took immediate action and instructed the team to withdraw the performance from on demand coverage.”

Earlier on Thursday, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told the House of Commons she had asked the BBC further questions about due diligence, senior oversight, and the delay in pulling the live feed.

“Given the seriousness of what happened, and particularly we heard in the House the absolute shocking stories of the impact this has had on the Jewish community in this country – given the seriousness of this, I would expect there to be accountability at the highest levels [of the BBC],” she said.

Since Glastonbury, Bob Vylan have had several bookings cancelled, including festival appearances in Manchester and France and a slot in Germany.

Avon and Somerset Police have launched a criminal investigation into their Glastonbury comments.

On Wednesday, London’s Metropolitan Police said the band are also under investigation for comments they allegedly made during a concert at Alexandra Palace in May.

During their Glastonbury set, Bob Vylan’s singer Pascal Robinson-Foster, who performs under the name Bobby Vylan, also spoke 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.

“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.”

In a statement, posted on Instagram on Tuesday, Bob Vylan said: “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”.

They added that “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”.