Kneecap Glastonbury gig 'higher risk' than Bob Vylan, BBC says

Rap group Kneecap were "placed in a higher category of risk" than Bob Vylan by the BBC, prior to its coverage of the Glastonbury festival, according to a letter from the corporation's director general Tim Davie to a committee of MPs.

The BBC has previously said it should have cut away from a live broadcast of Bob Vylan's performance at Glastonbury.

The band's singer led the crowd at the festival in chants of "death, death to the IDF' [Israel Defense Forces]".

Although there was no live stream of Kneecap's performance at the festival, the BBC later uploaded a largely unedited version of the performance to its Glastonbury highlights page on BBC iPlayer.

Kneecap band member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who performs under the name Mo Chara, was charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly displaying the flag of proscribed terrorist organisation Hezbollah at a gig last year.

He has denied the charge.

Avon and Somerset Police subsequently launched an investigation into whether comments made by either Bob Vylan or Kneecap at Glastonbury amounted to a criminal offence.

Westminster's Culture, Media and Sport Committee of MPs wrote to Mr Davie on 1 July over its coverage of Glastonbury to ask about decision-making processes and whether consideration was given to broadcasting with a delay.

Mr Davie's response to the chair of committee, Dame Caroline Dinenage MP, has just been published.

"I want the committee to be left in no doubt of the seriousness with which I am treating what happened at Glastonbury and the need for swift action to minimise the risk of something similar occurring again," he wrote.

In response to a question from the committee about whether the BBC considered streaming its Glastonbury coverage with a short time delay, Mr Davie said that a risk assessment had been undertaken of the acts that were performing.

"The risk assessment undertaken led to the BBC deciding that Kneecap's performance should be recorded from the livestream, put through a compliance process and uploaded to iPlayer to be available on demand, but not streamed live," he continued.

"No other risk assessment resulted in a similar decision being made for any other act.

"Other mitigations were considered and were put in place, particularly for high-risk acts, of which Bob Vylan was one of seven such acts."

Mr Davie also gave some further details about the "Category A" acts, assessed as the "highest acceptable risk" for live broadcast.

"Bob Vylan was assessed as one of seven Category A acts (the highest acceptable risk for live broadcast in a stream) to be shown over the course of the festival," he wrote.

"Kneecap, which was not streamed live, were placed in a higher category of risk."

Mr Davie said that, in future, any music performances deemed high risk would not be broadcast or streamed live by the BBC.

Mr Davie and the BBC Chair Samir Shah are due to appear before the committee in September to answer questions about the Glastonbury coverage as well as a Gaza documentary broadcast by the corporation and the investigation into the former Masterchef presenter Gregg Wallace.

Kneecap are an Irish-speaking rap trio who have courted controversy with their provocative lyrics and merchandise.

The group was formed in 2017 by three friends who go by the stage names of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí.

Their rise to fame inspired a semi-fictionalised film starring Oscar-nominated actor Michael Fassbender.

The film won a British Academy of Film Award (Bafta) in February 2025.