Glastonbury 2025: Neil Young bans BBC from broadcasting his set
A day before Glastonbury Festival officially gets underway, the BBC has confirmed it won’t be showing Neil Young’s headline set on the Pyramid Stage on June 28th.
In a statement provided to Far Out, a spokesperson for the BBC confirmed: “On Saturday on BBC iPlayer, our Glastonbury Channel and five streams for the main stages will bring a range of live performances to audiences. At the artist’s request, we won’t be live streaming Neil Young’s set.” T
The statement continues, “Our plans, including those for our TV highlights shows and on-demand coverage, continue to be finalised right up to and during the festival.”
This is in keeping with Young’s last visit to Worthy Farm. When he played in 2009, he only permitted the BBC to broadcast a handful of songs rather than the whole set.
It appears the BBC will be broadcasting Charli XCX’s set instead, as they wrote in a previously published coverage guide on their website, “Live at Worthy Farm on iPlayer and BBC One from 10:30pm as Charli XCX returns to headline the Other Stage in one of the most hyped sets of the weekend.” The coverage guide also failed to mention Young’s name once.
The BBC’s entertainment correspondent, Colin Patterson, previously alluded to Young’s decision not to broadcast his set during an update on Breakfast on June 25th. He noted Young’s absence from the scheduled programming and asked Glastonbury organiser, Emily Eavis, about the situation, who shed light on the matter.
“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,” he said, “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.”
Significantly, on January 1st, Young previously wrote on his website that he wouldn’t play at the festival due to its relationship with the broadcaster, writing, “We were told the BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot for things we were not interested in.”
The Canadian then accused Glastonbury of being “under corporate control” and described the event as a “corporate turn-off”.
Then, two days later, Young backtracked and confirmed he would play Worthy Farm, writing, “Due to an error in the information received, I had decided to not play the Glastonbury festival, which I always have loved. Happily, the festival is now back on our itinerary and we look forward to playing! Hope to see you there.”
Young is set to perform on the Pyramid Stage on June 28th at 22:00pm following sets from Raye and the mysterious Patchwork.
Far Out will be in attendance for his performance and providing direct coverage from Worthy Farm.
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