The BBC and coverage of commercial events - Glastonbury?

[AJL308]

Flowing from the discussion about the BBC and it's non-commercial mandate.

Over the past few years I've been wondering how the BBC's coverage of things like the Glastonbury Festival squares with it's 'non-commercial' mandate. Glastonbury is, after all, an entirely private commercial venture.

This year the BBC had two of it's TV channels covering the festival simultaneously, a huge amount of radio coverage and large amounts of its website seemed to be devoted to it.

Where does the legitimate coverage of a cultural event stop and it become little more than glorified advertising for a private commercial operation which is what Glastonbury is?

You could ask the same questions about sports events; F1, Wimbledon, the Word Cup, etc, are in reality simply private commercial businesses.

[AJL308]

Eric Mc said:

If they were not allowed broadcast live events that had a commercial ethos to them, there would be precious little in the way of live events left to show - apart from state occasions.

That's not really what I'm getting at though. I'm not suggesting they shouldn't be allowed to show privately produced live events, just when does it start to impinge on the 'non-commercial' ethos the BBC is supposed to have?

There was virtually blanket coverage by the BBC over the weekend. How far can they go without it just being a massive, publicly funded advert for someone's private business?

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FredClogs said:

Blanket coverage? I must have missed that. So you're saying no sport and no coverage of live performance art? Seems a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

To be fair Glastonbury is a bit more than a commercial venture, it's become a cultural mainstay and is run and organised along those lines which is why it has an eclectic arts based ethos and not a commercial one like say V festival or T in the Park which isn't covered by the bbc

No, that's not what I'm saying. The point of discussion was at what point, as far as commercial events are concerned, does coverage by the BBC turn from legitimate coverage of a cultural event to being free promotional material for the owner of the business running it?

Blanket coverage? Yes, pretty much. It was covered on two BBC TV channels at the same time, two nights running, as I recall; the Chris Evans show was there for radio and was being plugged all over the BBC what seemed incessantly.

Perhaps that's all ok? I don't really know. Surely though the BBC must have some policy as to what constitutes commercial promotion and what is legitimate coverage.

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IroningMan said:

I don't think the BBC has to pay anything for the broadcast rights for Glastonbury, so it's a great deal of low-cost content for them. That notwithstanding, it doesn't get saturation coverage compared to Wimbledon, The Proms, or any other event of similar profile.

It was virtually never off the airwaves all weekend. I think it even started as early as the Thursday.

I agree that things like Wimbledon involve the issue as well. When does coverage of that become free promotion of private interests?

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Eric Mc said:

And if the BBC disappeared, where would he get that "promotion" from for free?

Would Glastonbury and similar events survive without it?

He wouldn't, he'd have to pay for it. Same as everyone else in the private sector.

Yes, it would probably survive. Might not be as massive though so he'd make less.