Newly-appointed chief content officer says she is ‘personally really upset’
Newly-appointed BBC chief content officer Kate Phillips has sent an apology to staff over the live broadcast of Bob Vylan at Glastonbury, following similar apologies from Tim Davie and Samir Shah earlier today.
In an email to all staff and supporting teams in BBC Content this afternoon, Phillips - who was confirmed in the top editorial job just over two weeks ago - said: “I just wanted to get in contact with you all as I know the past few days have been very difficult for many across the content division.
“As Tim made clear, behaviour during Bob Vylan’s set was deeply offensive and should never have been aired on our platforms.”
She pointed to the immediate changes being implemented to livestreaming music events announced earlier today, including ensuring that any performances deemed high risk will not be broadcast or streamed live, and the need to have editorial policy support always available on site.
“I’m personally really upset by what happened, and I know the behaviour on stage caused a lot of distress, particularly for our Jewish colleagues throughout the BBC and the Jewish community. I’m also sorry that these events have overshadowed the incredible efforts of teams across the organisation who worked tirelessly to bring Glastonbury to our audiences.
“Please know that you can reach out to me personally, or to any member of our content leadership team, if you want to talk. We’re here to listen,” she added.
Earlier today, Samir Shah and Tim Davie apologised for errors in the decision-making process around the live broadcast of the band’s chants of “free, free Palestine” and “death, death to the IDF”, and promised “proper accountability for those found to be responsible” for errors in the lead up to and during the performance.
In its statement today, the broadcaster revealed that, before the festival, it had identified Bob Vylan as one of seven “high risk” acts but deemed its set suitable for live streaming without a delay with the mitigations of language or content warnings. It admitted that the editorial team’s decision not to cut the feed “was an error”. The live feed remained on iPlayer until shortly after 8pm.
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