BBC under fire for its Glastonbury 400

by Staff, Brand Republic 29-Jun-09, 08:15

LONDON - The BBC is under fire for sending more than 400 staff to the Glastonbury music festival, which was headlined this year by Bruce Springsteen and Blur.

Questions were being raised as to whether it was right to spend licence fee cash covering the four day festival at the same time it is making staff redundant and being criticised for excessive expenses claims by executives.

A number of senior BBC staff were given free tickets and put up in hotels at the expense of licence payers.

In all the BBC confirmed it sent:

27 television and radio presenters, including Mark Radcliffe, Jo Whiley and Zane Lowe.
A 68-strong editorial team
160 technicians.
An 18-strong interactive content team.
130 contractors for technical and security work, according to a report in the Sunday Times.

The BBC block books a number of hotels in surrounding towns to accommodate its army of staff.

Senior executives at the festival included Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, and Mark Byford, the deputy director-general, who was revealed to have been regularly charging the licence payer £240 a day for a chauffeur to pick him up from Waterloo station.

Together these staff produced 111 hours of TV, more than 60 hours of radio, 600 online pages and 57 hours of online video across BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, on Radio 1, 6 Music and 5 Live -- and interactive red button content and a dedicated website.

By offering blanket coverage the BBC has been accused of creating needless duplication.

Conservative MP Philip Davies, who sits on the House of Commons Culture Select Committee, said that it was another example of how the BBC was bloated and operating in a way vastly different to rivals Sky and ITV, which do not have the cash or man power to deliver such far reaching coverage.

Also appearing at this year's festival were Kasabian, Franz Ferdinand, Lily Allen, Lady Gaga and Dizzee Rascal.

Comparisons were being made with the huge team that the BBC sent to cover the Bejing Olympics, where the BBC had a team of 437, and last year's US Presidential Elections where it had 175 staff -- far outstripping commercial rivals.

A spokesman for the BBC said: "Our coverage of the festival is not comparable with the Olympics.

"We are the official broadcast partner to Glastonbury and are responsible for all broadcast infra-structure and transmission. Our pictures will be used around the world."

The details of the BBC's Glastonbury coverage follow revelations last week about £13.6m in expenses was enjoyed by its top 50 executives.

Read Gordon's Republic blog post - Why the critics are wrong - the BBC and Glastonbury

Comments

AwallafaShagba - 29/06/2009

This needs to be looked at closer as I'd have though the revenue stream back to the BBC far exceeds what was spent..

John Gallen - 29/06/2009

The coverage of Glasto has been fantastic the last few years. I don't see it as excessive. It actually means you can follow the event as you move around all weekend from car to home radio to mobile radio to TV, the web.... and so on. It's brilliant. Another needless attack on the BBC. Comparisons to ITV and Sky do not make sense to me. And yes, Awallafa's point is spot on.

Gordon Macmillan - 29/06/2009

I think the coverage was also pretty excellent, but i'm not sure what commercial angle Awallafa is referring to.

Simon Chapman - 29/06/2009

Excellent Glastonbury coverage again this year. Really an excellent substitute for not being there \(and certainly better from the point of view of actually being able to see the acts!). The BBC is a public service broadcaster. I pay my licence fee and this is just the kind of thing I expect them to 'serve' me with. If that's how many people it takes, that's how many people it takes.

Jon Exley - 30/06/2009

I'm sure I can view pretty much all of the festival on iPlayer, but the coverage broadcast on TV has been patchy. I saw a bit each night over the weekend, but there was nothing last night after 8pm - about the time I got home from work and looking forward to catching up on what I'd missed. Luckily the BBC were showing the tennis in full uninterupted glory... wonder how many people they have at Wimbledon this week???