BBC Director Of Music “steps back”

[Ein Heldenleben]

Has any one else noticed that the BBC’s Director Of Music, Lorna Clarke , appears to have “stepped back” from her responsibilities following the Bob Vylan debacle. “Stepping back “ being BBC speak for being ear-marked for carrying the can. I’m probably more sympathetic than most as those music OB’s are chaotic and half the time it’s impossible to hear (even in a broadcast truck ) what’s being said on air. And getting stuff taken off iPlayer used to be a bureaucratic nightmare - had to be authorised at Controller level if I remember rightly .Something tells me it’s about to get a lot easier.

Lorna was also the architect of the aborted BBC Singers axing scheme - now there’s a group you could get on at Glasto with no editorial risk at all.

[LMcD]

Has any one else noticed that the BBC’s Director Of Music, Lorna Clarke , appears to have “stepped back” from her responsibilities following the Bob Vylan debacle. “Stepping back “ being BBC speak for being ear-marked for carrying the can. I’m probably more sympathetic than most as those music OB’s are chaotic and half the time it’s impossible to hear (even in a broadcast truck ) what’s being said on air. And getting stuff taken off iPlayer used to be a bureaucratic nightmare - had to be authorised at Controller level if I remember rightly .Something tells me it’s about to get a lot easier.

Lorna was also the architect of the aborted BBC Singers axing scheme - now there’s a group you could get on at Glasto with no editorial risk at all.

So - who was the real Vylan of the piece?

[french frank]

No! I noted yesterday that some senior staff had 'stepped back' (what does that mean, actually?**) but they named no names. Also, I noted that the DG himself had been there on "the day" ... I wonder which Proms he'll choose to go to ...

** EH has explained

*** D Mail has "is stood down from duties".

[Forget It (U2079353)]

Here's a cellphone footage of what Vylan actually said

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6rSFRSmXdk

[pastoralguy]

I’ve been following this story with some curiosity. Years ago, I was listening to a live concert given by the Jerusalem Quartet from an 11.00 Queen’s Hall concert as part of the Edinburgh Festival. Shortly after they started playing, a group of women started singing a very restrained protest song. It took about 7 seconds for the feed to be pulled and returned to London where a rather breathless continuity announcer apologised and played a cd. Perhaps, as Heldenleben has said, it’s harder to hear a popular music recital. Mind you, 15 minutes!

[Ein Heldenleben]

I’ve been following this story with some curiosity. Years ago, I was listening to a live concert given by the Jerusalem Quartet from an 11.00 Queen’s Hall concert as part of the Edinburgh Festival. Shortly after they started playing, a group of women started singing a very restrained protest song. It took about 7 seconds for the feed to be pulled and returned to London where a rather breathless continuity announcer apologised and played a cd. Perhaps, as Heldenleben has said, it’s harder to hear a popular music recital. Mind you, 15 minutes!

And there you have the nub of the problem . Network Radio and TV have continuity suites that can do that . The iPlayer doesn’t . If the feed from the OB at Glasto was going to straight to iPlayer it’s quite a rigmarole to cut the feed . You can stop filming but the standing instruction is to keep going if only for legal reasons. So if there’s a demo at a sports event the protocol is to cut to a wide but record what’s happening on an isolated feed that the public don’t see. There are a huge number of guidelines in and around live events (especially Royal ones ) that the public are only dimly aware of.

In my view live OB feeds to iPlayer need ultra careful consideration with extra editorial support in the OB vehicle . Some one who’s job is to listen to what’s being said, has no other responsibilities and has sufficient editorial authority to get the director ( who will very stretched ) to FTB (fade to black ] if necessary. That might already be in place but if it is it didn’t work on Saturday…

ps I really never liked directing or producing live OBs …it’s the tv equivalent of the infantry. Also very unhealthy…

[french frank]

Probably would be better if the Director General stepped back. I see the BBC is also getting flak for its Gaza coverage, including from its own journalists. The saturation coverage of Glastonbury and the importance the BBC gives to it seem symbolic of its current purpose and standing.

[oddoneout]

Has any one else noticed that the BBC’s Director Of Music, Lorna Clarke , appears to have “stepped back” from her responsibilities following the Bob Vylan debacle. “Stepping back “ being BBC speak for being ear-marked for carrying the can. I’m probably more sympathetic than most as those music OB’s are chaotic and half the time it’s impossible to hear (even in a broadcast truck ) what’s being said on air. And getting stuff taken off iPlayer used to be a bureaucratic nightmare - had to be authorised at Controller level if I remember rightly .Something tells me it’s about to get a lot easier.

Lorna was also the architect of the aborted BBC Singers axing scheme - now there’s a group you could get on at Glasto with no editorial risk at all.

Because the political and protest repertoire they could select from would be from 'ancient times' and/or in 'forrin' so no-one would realise the significance? And the currently frowned on well known pieces(used to be criticised for jingoism, now its slavery etc) are not likely to feature in one of their programmes anyway.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Probably would be better if the Director General stepped back. I see the BBC is also getting flak for its Gaza coverage, including from its own journalists. The saturation coverage of Glastonbury and the importance the BBC gives to it seem symbolic of its current purpose and standing.

No that would be a mistake. There’ve been far too many DG sackings . It’s essentially an impossible job and these media / political storms are largely about keeping the BBC supine which suits the politicians - and weak which suits competing media. That said this was a fiasco waiting to happen. Live streaming Glastonbury is just not a good idea without incredibly rigorous protocols. The fact is if this had happened on Prime or Netflix there would have been nothing like as much outrage, I doubt if 50,000 people actually saw that set go out live in player .


A more important question- should the BBC be spending millions on Glasto when the commercials could do it ?

[Petrushka]

Why not have a 15 - 20 second delay between the live event and the 'live' broadcast? Horse racing on ITV do this in order to avoid showing anything nasty. I suspect that other so called live broadcasts do it as well.

Make the gap a minute if needed as most viewers will not notice anyway.

[french frank]

No that would be a mistake. There’ve been far too many DG sackings .

That may be right in practical terms - but only because it's unlikely the relevant authorities would find someone better. But by what process was a businessman from the industrial commercial sector - not to mention a reported penchant for popular music - ever appointed? As chairman okay. but as DG? It was the politicians that put a Tory council candidate, late of PepsiCola, with no relevant broadcasting connection and no obvious PSB interest in the position in the first place. It's hard to discern what principles and values the BBC has now which differ from one of the big supermarket chains. It is not alone in that.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Why not have a 15 - 20 second delay between the live event and the 'live' broadcast? Horse racing on ITV do this in order to avoid showing anything nasty. I suspect that other so called live broadcasts do it as well.

Make the gap a minute if needed as most viewers will not notice anyway.

Why not have a 15 - 20 second delay between the live event and the 'live' broadcast? Horse racing on ITV do this in order to avoid showing anything nasty. I suspect that other so called live broadcasts do it as well.

Make the gap a minute if needed as most viewers will not notice anyway.

The BBC doesn’t do that not even on Local radio phone ins . It relies in the live presenter to shut a fader . But you can’t do that on iPlayer - there’s no other material to go to - at least not immediately.It doesn’t really help . And if you cut the feed you can guarantee you’ll get even more complaints. I guess you could put up an apology cap - but that smacks of desperation .
I suspect it’s perfectly possible in the scanner that no one heard live the words anyway which is why you need a remote continuity area listening in who can make the decision to take that feed off air. Again not something you can do on iPlayer without something to go to . It’s difficult to explain but the iPlayer is not a conventional tV channel. I see today that BBC will no longer live stream on iPlayer high risk live acts like Kneecap and Bob Vylan.

The key mistake was putting them live on iPlayer in the first place .

Incidentally iPlayer like BBC sounds has a 15 to 30 sec technical delay while it goes through all the processing needs to convert a perfectly good TV signal into the technical mess you see on your screens.

1 minute of true HD is about 1 GB
30 mins of iPlayer HD about 0.5 gb

[LMcD]

Probably would be better if the Director General stepped back. I see the BBC is also getting flak for its Gaza coverage, including from its own journalists. The saturation coverage of Glastonbury and the importance the BBC gives to it seem symbolic of its current purpose and standing.

The recent series of self-inflicted wounds is making it increasingly difficult for long-time supporters of the BBC (such as myself) to keep the faith. Far too often these days, the subject of the main story on BBC News is BBC News itself or some other part of the Corporation. They seemed to have learnt nothing following the aerial tour of Sir Cliff Richard's property. .

[Petrushka]

They seemed to have learnt nothing following the aerial tour of Sir Cliff Richard's property. .

It was that episode that shattered my faith in BBC News and it has never really recovered.

[Ein Heldenleben]

The recent series of self-inflicted wounds is making it increasingly difficult for long-time supporters of the BBC (such as myself) to keep the faith. Far too often these days, the subject of the main story on BBC News is BBC News itself or some other part of the Corporation. They seemed to have learnt nothing following the aerial tour of Sir Cliff Richard's property. .

One part of BBC News takes inordinate pleasure in castigating the corporation esp if it’s another part of BBC News . However in the case of Cliff they were perhaps right to do so. Saturday was a mistake and it could happen to any one. But with Cliff it was all carefully prepared with no one it seems saying “hold on a minute…are you sure about this? .” As a very wise BBC lawyer said to me once “sometimes there is smoke without fire,”