THE GLASTONBURY JUNKET

Wonder how you feel about the BBC’s coverage of the Glastonbury-fest?

The BBC has admitted that 125 staff and 150 freelancers are at Glastonbury, either as presenters, producers, directors or technical crew in order to broadcast across BBC2, BBC3, BBC4 and an interactive channel, as well as on Radio 1, 6 Music, 5 Live and a dedicated website. Hosts include Jo Whiley, Zane Lowe and Steve Lamacq.

Alongside them are about 130 short-term contractors hired by the BBC to offer ‘support’ at the 1,100-acre Somerset site. It says these include people who provide ‘some specialist technical services, rigging at the start and end of the project, and security

Nice to know that even in this time of ….economic “down turn”….. the BBC feels obliged to pull out all the stops when it comes to this event.

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46 Responses to THE GLASTONBURY JUNKET

  1. Martin says:

    The BBC don't do anything by halves. Add in the hundreds of beeboids at Wimbledon and I'd bet that all costs 'us' quite a pretty penny.

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  2. DB says:

    Beeboids at Glastonbury – among their own kind.

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  3. DB says:

    re previous post – to clarify, I'm not saying those Greenpeace tossers with their fake protest are BBC employees (although they could be), just that BBC types have an affinity for all the leftie activism at Glastonbury.

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  4. Anonymous says:

    Spare a thought – without Galstonbury they'd all have been flown over to LA for the Michael Jackson's still dead and nobody need know anything more than that junket.

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  5. AndrewSouthLondon says:

    " Glasto – wow its just like being back at Uni – but being paid for it! Got to run – plane to catch to LA, cover the Jacko thing for BBC Radio Dorset. Its way cool working for the BBC. What about the recession – what Recession? Oh the one you are all having, the one that started elsewhere. No, no recession here. Its our job to try and cheer everyone up. Want to hear a joke? The Conservative Party. Its all in the timing you see, comedy"

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  6. Anonymous says:

    Alas your figures are well light.

    Its not 275, obscene though that would be.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/5671336/BBC-sends-407-staff-to-Glastonbury-festival.html

    Its 407 !!!

    At a cost of more than ten thousand licence fees.

    The BBC have imploded.

    Their destruction cannot be far away.

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  7. Scott M says:

    Heavens! More people needed for technical and backstage duties than people at the Daily Mail realise! Sack everyone at the BBC now!

    Of course, the Mail knows damned well that large scale OBs need large staff numbers. They also know that by acting all outraged, they'll whip up frenzy by the slavering masses who are more concerned with being angry about things than they are about being accurate. Looks like it's worked again.

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  8. Anonymous says:

    The BBC is the state at its most horrifically dangerous.

    Truth, justice, uncorrupted information, public service, making this country or indeed the world a better place for all human beings, and above all collective and individual common sense, are not on the establishments agenda, and NEVER have been.

    If you only understand one thing about the BBC, the most important thing to understand is the following.

    The BBC is what it most surly is, does what it does, and says what it says, because the BRITISH and now WORLD establishment that wholly control The BBC, have carefully designed it to be so.

    Please try your utmost to bare this long since been the case FACT of life in mind, whenever considering the true motivations that drive ALL BBC and establishment mendacity.

    Divide and rule MONOPOLY is the game, and has been the game, since so called civilization first began. It is a game of fascist corporatist MONOPOLY where the establishment make all the rules, change them at will, and above all control the bank.

    Surly this is now self apparent to all thinking individuals? If not it most surly should be.

    What the BBC is very much not is an enormously powerful and completely out of control corporation, with a £4 Billion per year budget, ( which is double the GDP of most third world countries ) run by a bunch of middle aged leftist six formers. However much The BBC may wish to appear to be so.

    Atlas shrugged

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  9. Craig says:

    The wicked 'Daily Mail' reminds us of another bit of BBC extravagance:

    "The BBC’s huge staff invites comparisons with the 437-strong team that it sent to China to cover last year’s Olympics at a cost of £3million. It was accused of being profligate, not least because the British Olympic team consisted of only 313 athletes."

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  10. GCooper says:

    Scott, you are either ill-informed or an imbecile.

    Possibly both.

    Given the lightweight ENG equipment and digital systems used by broadcasters, it is perfectly possible to cover an event like this with far fewer than 400 people.

    No, the truth is that Glastonbury is a cultural icon for people of a certain age – and,as even Mar has admitted, an unrepresentative proportion of such people work for the Corporation.

    Like so many other pronounced Corporation enthusiasms ('Green' and 'progressve' politics' 'gay rights' etc) those working for the BBC believe them to be far more widely shared by the general public than they are.

    The majority of people attending this beanfeast for the BBC are going to be the usual media liggers on a jolly.

    More people go fishing every weekend than go to Glastonbury. When did you last see a programme about fishing on the BBC?

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  11. GCooper says:

    For 'Mar' above, read 'Marr'

    wv: lilyth. How appropriate.

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  12. backwoodsman says:

    Suggest Scott M reads Sunday Times on beeboids at Glastonbury, which will save him the embarressment of implying that its just some filthy plot by the Daily Mail to blacken the names of blameless beeboids !
    An awful lot of people who were dumb enough to fall for the new labour bullshit have now woken up to the true cost of it, and the bbc, aka the broadcasting wing of nulab, are rightly going to be held responsible for collaborating in the deception !
    Also suggest Atlas gives the world domination malarky a rest and gets out on the knocker for his local Conservative candidate – doing something constructive to get rid of gordon brown. And no, DC is not controlled by bilderburg lizards, before you suggest it.

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  13. Martin says:

    Scott M: Leave your rent boy alone for a minute. Does Andrew Marr REALLY have to be at Glastonbury?

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  14. pete says:

    We can only hope the Tories get to grips with the BBC as soon as they are elected to poawer.

    The corporation is behaving with the contempt, arrogance and indifference of a despotic royal family just before the people decide they aren't needed anymore.

    It has reached the stage where it believes itself to rule the nation's airwaves by some kind of natural law and that everything it does deserves praise and thanks from a grateful and adoring population.

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  15. Martin says:

    I see the Met Office (yet another arm of Nu Liebour) is declaring a "Heat Wave". No doubt in an attempt to convicne us that man made climate change is the cause.

    Why is it that a few hot days in SUMMER seems to send the camp Evinormental lot loony?

    It's SUMMER, it's supposed to be hot you tossers.

    The summer of 77 was a heat wave.

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  16. Ratass Shagged says:

    So what gay hating rap band are headlining Glastonbury this year? And Scott m you really are a misinformed twat if you think it takes 400 people to cover Glastonbury in a technical capacity. But then this is the BBC. I suspect half of those will be there to assume their non job positions of diversity commisars, community tsars, gay counsellors and of course a team to build the Muslim prayer booth for the 1 or 2 Islamic staff members. You wouldn't last 2 seconds in the private sector you moronic tosspot.

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  17. Ron Todd says:

    Saw some of the pop concert thing coverage. Did not see one woman in a burka the BBC should be ashemed of giving so much coverage to an event that clearly discriminates against Muslims.

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  18. Craig says:

    Did anyone catch Jon Sopel's chummy interview with Nick Clegg on the 'Politics Show'?
    Cleggy is at Glastonbury, naturally, chillin' with da youngstas.
    The interview was full of duff jokes from Sopel.
    Then right at the end came something that was laugh-out-loud funny – Clegg looking the wrong way & then looking gormless on failing to see a massive fake elephant behind him.
    One for YouTube.

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  19. chrish says:

    Patronising guff from the permanent revolutionaries with expense accounts and a chance to hopefully meet a rock star.Glastonbury is the new Davos for these class warriors!
    Remember these weekend rebels from university who`d hide their old school tie until the surname got them into the BBC.
    Imagine them in their Winnebagos behind the velvet rope(no inclusion here old boy!) planning their raids on the public purse for their Jacko funeral beano-and imagine that the iceberg/polar bear footage will be parked until they next get stuck in a traffic jam on the M25 as per!

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  20. thespecialone says:

    Martin@1.31pm I think you mean the summer of 1976 rather than 1977. But I take your point. Does anyone remember Mud, Sweet and Showaddywaddy taking over the old Wembley Stadium to 'save the planet'. NO!!!

    Back then there were still coal fires in every house; car engines were a lot less efficient and were run on 4-star or 2-star petrol; eastern-bloc factories pumped out god knows how many tons of crap etc etc there was none of the bilge pumped out by Al Bore and other warmists?

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  21. DB says:

    I pointed this out in the Sneering Comedians thread but I think it deserves repeating. BBC favourite Marcus Brigstocke got up on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury to speak on behalf of communist throwbacks CND. His CND pal claims it well, but a fan in the audience tells a different story. See the tweets here.

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  22. DB says:

    Should read "claims it went well".

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  23. Fergus says:

    Glastonbury is hideously white, even whiter than Michael Jackson's supposed offspring.

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  24. Gigits says:

    Bruce Springsteen was fantastic at Glasto. It is the only thing I've watched on TV for many many months.

    That's all I get for my licence fee it appears.

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  25. Anonymous says:

    Craig said….

    Didn't see the interview (thank God!). Don't know whether it's me or not, but are the Lib Dems now the official opposition?

    Vince Cable on Marr this morning (I notice another Tory free episode), Clegg on Sopel's hour long love in with everything left.

    It's as if AljaBeeba has given up on the morons currently in charge and it's now anyone but the Tories. BNP next?

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  26. DB says:

    If you didn't hear Gabby Logan at Glastonbury on R5L this morning (lucky you) they're repeating an hour of it right now on R5L, only six hours later. Quality use of the licence fee.

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  27. Craig says:

    Anonymous 6.04,

    Sopey introduced Cleggy with the words "a very warm welcome" & ended the interview with "I hope it all goes very well there".

    Get a room, Sopel.

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  28. Anonymous says:

    All this fuss and expense and the "music" is total shite.

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  29. Anonymous says:

    Mustn't let the terrible "music" stop us from going on our jolly to Glastonbury. Its a bit like that story about the king with no clothes.

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  30. Original Robin says:

    I think it`s sick of the BBC to enjoy themselves at Glastonbury when poor Michael jacksons dead.

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  31. Anonymous says:

    Just finished watching Casualty 1909. I heartily enjoyed the pilot and the first couple of shows because it showed the dawn of new technologies and procedures that last to this day. But now last couple of programmes they've turned it into the mythologising left wing socialist revolutionary philosophy.

    Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

    Sir Winston Churchill

    You never see the opposite perspective from the right wing in the BBC's entertainment content unless it is a negative context.

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  32. Anonymous says:

    This is a fair cop. While it probably does need a few people to get the coverage done as the official OB for the event (would be interested to know if the beeb makes money from selling the footage outside the UK) it doesnt need Mark Byford or any one of a number of other senior liggers there.

    You would think someone would have the sense to say 'Is sending 400 people there really a good idea right now?'.

    But alas not.

    R1 certainly dont need anyone there – the R1 audience think it is a sad muddy event for old tossers and pillheads. Well, you can't fool youth 🙂

    Sarah Jane

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  33. dave s says:

    We should encourage the extravagence of the BBC. It can only lead to the general population holding it in contempt. This is a depression we are heading into and as long as the BBC continues to act as if it is immune it will continue to dig it's own grave. Mark Thompson in his arrogant self justifying stupidity is the best friend the abolitionists have. Things have really changed but the beeboids just don't understand what is coming down the road. Ancien regimes never do until it is too late.

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  34. Anonymous says:

    I became aware of the BBC's extravagance some years ago. It started with their holiday programs and then the food programs. Much of it seemed to be at odds with what ordinary people could afford. Now they have left most of us way behind.

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  35. Anonymous says:

    Sarah Jane. Well and truly said until the very end. When you say "you can't fool youth". If that were true we wouldn't have BHO as President.

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  36. John Horne Tooke says:

    In 1953 there were 21 camera crews covering the Coronation for the BBC – which had 20 million viewers.

    Looking at this picture:
    http://www.terramedia.co.uk/media/television/coronation_cameraman.JPG

    There was one person per camera – lets say there was also a sound engineer per camera, that would make a total of 42 – then there would be the technicians, not sure how many of them there would be but lets say 20 at the outside. There was also Richard Dimberlby who did the commentary. Would 63 be a resonable figure? Now compare 1950s technology with todays. Does that really mean that it takes 400 BBC types to cover a minor event such as a pop festival?

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  37. George R says:

    As Melanie Phillips concludes:

    "The BBC has become so big and bloated that it has lost all sense of what public service and accountability actually mean. And as with Parliament, the public just won't stand for it any longer. The licence-fee party is over."
    ('Daily Mail', today.)

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  38. DJ says:

    I think there are four stages at Glastobury, so assuming they need to keep one team permanantly on each, with a roving crew,that makes 80 people per report. I guess we'll know the truth if next time a town in West Yorks get flooded, the BBC have to send two coachloads of people to report from it.

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  39. DB says:

    Justin Cartwright was on Start the Week this morning to discuss his new novel and Andrew Marr made the following observation about the book's main character, an ageing TV news presenter: "He does become a bit of a sort of sad old trendy in some respects…"

    For those of you who don't know what a sad old trendy ageing TV news presenter looks like, check out the first picture in the article DV linked to.

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  40. DB says:

    Sir Sean blasts BBC over film festival snub

    SIR Sean Connery used the final day of Scotland's major film festival yesterday to launch an outspoken attack against the BBC's poor coverage of the event…
    He accused the BBC of effectively ignoring the film festival in its new slot in the calendar in June and said he was furious when he heard the corporation had sent hundreds of dedicated staff to the Glastonbury festival, but "not one" to Edinburgh…
    The 78-year-old actor mocked the BBC's name, saying it had no right to say that it represented the whole of the UK and that it actually stood for "British Bull**** Corporation"
    .

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  41. Anonymous says:

    Nicholas Campbell, being very understanding about gangs and knives this morning on 5, said that we all like to be with a group that we think is pretty much the same as ourselves. (strikes me as a bit racist and un-pc from a Beeboid….) Anyway, perhaps that explains why so many of them are at Glastonbury.

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  42. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Anonymous @ 6:04 PM

    The Lib-Dems are the official opposition only when economic issues come up. Except when a Labourite is on bleating about nasty Tory cuts.

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  43. George R says:

    Telegraph':

    "BBC sent 407 to Glastonbury, but all you got were the highlights"

    [Extract]:

    "The BBC has spent around £1.5 million sending 407 reporters, technicians and other workers to Glastonbury but its coverage of the festival has been undermined by disputes with acts limiting the amount of live music it can broadcast."

    {..}

    "It has also emerged that the corporation, which has provided coverage of the festival for the last ten years, was the only broadcaster to bid for the contract to provide coverage Glastonbury when it last came up for renewal.

    "Matthew Elliott, the chief-executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance pressure group said the festival had turned into an 'annual jamboree for BBC employees'.

    "'It raises very serious questions because it leaves the licence fee payer with the impression that it's an annual BBC junket. All 407 staff can't all be there doing proper work.

    "'The fact that nobody else even wants this contract suggests people will be very concerned about how licence fee money is being spent.'"

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  44. GCooper says:

    Well, Scott M?

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  45. DB says:

    Andrew Marr checking out the totty at Glastonbury. What would Jackie say?

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  46. George R says:

    "Did the BBC really need that many people at Glastonbury?"

    By Sue Carroll 30/06/2009 ('Mirror'.)

    "More than 400 people covered Glastonbury for the BBC last weekend and I don’t for one minute doubt the riggers, sound men, electricians and a handful of reporters did a necessary, useful job.

    "But for every rigger let’s count a ligger. Yet again I’m reminded of the old joke. How many people work at the BBC? About half."

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