It looks like Neil Young’s Glastonbury headlining set won’t be shown on the BBC, in what looks - at face value, at least - like a bit of score-settling when earlier this year the 79 year old singer songwriter briefly pulled out of the festival, alleging it was “under (the) corporate control’ of the broadcaster.
Speculation arose about Young's non-appearance yesterday when the corporation shared its coverage plans for the next few days. As in recent years, every act from all five of the main stages – Pyramid, Other, West Holts, Woodsies and Park will be shown, either live on the main channels or on BBC iplayer.
As you can see here, there are mentions all of the other big acts that are playing, from Rod Stewart to The 1975 to The Prodigy to many many others. Nowhere can the name ‘Neil Young’ be found.
Now, no less an authority than Emily Eavis has added weight to this by saying she “does not believe” the BBC will show Young’s set.
This has been reported by the BBC’s own Entertainment Correspondent who reported on this issue on the BBC1 Breakfast programme.
He said: “I asked Emily Eavis, ‘What was going on?’, and she says she does not believe that Neil Young’s set will be broadcast by the BBC. There’s been all kinds of backstage wrangling and negotiations, but as things currently stand, Neil Young’s headline set on Saturday night will not be broadcast by the BBC.”
How much of this is Young being difficult or the BBC playing hardball is impossible to say at this stage. The veteran Canadian singer songwriter has long railed against ‘corporate rock’- his 1988 single This Note’s For You came with a video that satirised Budweiser’s then-current ‘This Bud’s for you’ ad campaign.
Maybe Young has got it in his head that because the BBC – a publicly owned body funded by UK TV owners – has the word ‘corporation’ in its name they are comparable with Budweiser, Coke and Pepsi? Who can say?
In a statement, the BBC did not mention Young specifically. They said: “We aim to bring audiences as many performances as possible from the Pyramid Stage, and our schedules and plans continue to be finalised, right up to and during the festival.”
