Ofcom speaking to BBC ‘as a matter of urgency’ over Bob Vylan Glastonbury controversy

Ofcom has said they will be speaking to the BBC over Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance.

On Saturday the English punk duo – which includes frontman Bobby Vylan and Bobbie Vylan on drums – took to the festival’s West Holts Stage ahead of Kneecap.

During their set, they led festival-goers in chants calling for the end of the Israeli Defence Force and to ‘free, free Palestine’.

Soon after police said they were reviewing footage from the performance to determine whether any offences had been committed.

Now the broadcasting regulator Ofcom has issued a statement on the BBC’s coverage of Bob Vylan’s performance at Glastonbury.

‘We are very concerned about the live stream of this performance, and the BBC clearly has questions to answer,’ the statement began.

‘We have been speaking to the BBC over the weekend and we are obtaining further information as a matter of urgency, including what procedures were in place to ensure compliance with its own editorial guidelines.’

Ofcom’s involvement at this stage is an unusual move, given that the BBC has its own complaints process, which complainants must go through before they can be escalated to Ofcom.

The Ofcom guidance for BBC complaints states that it is only in ‘exceptional circumstances’ that Ofcom can circumvent the BBC’s complaints process.

The example given for such circumstances on the Ofcom website is ‘if the BBC broadcast content involving potentially serious harm to the public’.

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