Tim Davie turns on BBC staff over Bob Vylan failings

Telegraph

14-07-2025

The director general of the BBC has said staff at Glastonbury had the authority to cut Bob Vylan's performance from the air, as he appeared to blame them for broadcasting chants against the Israel Defense Forces.
Tim Davie told Parliament's culture, media and sport committee on Monday that ending the broadcast was an 'option open to those on the ground on the day,' but that they had not taken action.
During a performance at the festival, the punk rap duo encouraged the crowd to join in chants of 'death, death to the IDF', in reference to the Israeli military killing thousands of Palestinians in Gaza.
The performance was carried live and remained available on BBC iPlayer for several hours, leading to severe criticism of the corporation from ministers, MPs and anti-Semitism campaigners.
In a letter to MPs, Mr Davie appeared to blame those working at Glastonbury, which he also attended, for the mistake.
'There were individuals present at Glastonbury who had the authority to cut the livestream after appropriate consideration,' he wrote.
'Those individuals had access to advice and support offsite should they have considered it necessary.'
But the director general refused to answer a question from Dame Caroline Dineage, the committee's chairman, over whether cutting the live feed was discussed during the performance.
He wrote: 'You will appreciate that the answer to this question is currently being considered through the appropriate internal processes.
'What we can say is that cutting the livestream was an option open to those on the ground on the day.'
He added that the corporation was taking immediate action on the 'failings', including 'ensuring proper accountability for those found to be responsible for those failings in the live broadcast'.
The BBC has since changed its rules so that high-risk artists are not broadcast live.
Mr Davie said in his letter that Bob Vylan were assessed as a 'Category A' risk for broadcast, while Kneecap, another band performing at the festival, were considered even more risky.
Kneecap was not streamed live, but the corporation decided that Bob Vylan could broadcast.
Mr Davie said that 'other mitigations were considered and were put in place' for Bob Vylan's performance, but conceded that 'there were failures in our coverage which led to offensive content being broadcast live'.
He added: '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.'
The incident led to an intervention on Sunday from Dame Melanie Dawes, the chief executive of Ofcom, who said that public trust in the BBC had been weakened by the broadcast.
She called on executives to 'get a grip quicker' on similar situations in future.
'A problem of leadership'
Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, said that the fiasco had exposed 'a problem of leadership' at the BBC, and sources close to her suggested she expected to see members of staff fired for the mistake.
Mr Davie's letter came on a day of turmoil for the BBC, as it published two other investigations into the Gregg Wallace debacle and the decision to air a documentary about the conflict in Gaza that featured the son of a Hamas official. The boy was interviewed without reference to his father's role.
Campaigners have called for Mr Davie's resignation over the documentary, which the BBC has since acknowledged did not meet its editorial guidelines.
Gideon Falter, chief executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: 'If the BBC were an accountable organisation, senior executives would be scrambling to save their jobs.
'Instead, it's the usual weasel pledge to 'update some guidelines'. This is appalling.
'Under director general Tim Davie, the BBC has gone from national treasure to national embarrassment. He needs to go.'
Danny Cohen, former director of BBC Television, added: 'This looks like a classic case of 'deputy heads must roll' and that is nowhere near good enough.'