Glastonbury festival has come under fire by the watchdog after its radio station broadcasted unedited music (Picture: Getty Images)
Glastonbury’s on-site radio station breached broadcasting rules when it aired a song featuring offensive language by rapper Little Simz, according to the broadcasting watchdog.
Worthy FM – entirely run by volunteers – played the track Miss Understood not long before 7pm on Thursday, June 23 of this year’s festival.
Ofcom has since said it received a complaint about the use of offensive language in the popular hit, that featured the words ‘f**k’ and ‘n****’.
During its assessment of the programme, the regulatory body discovered the song DNA by Kendrick Lamar, which also contains offensive words, had been played too.
The watchdog said the station had breached three rules relating to the broadcast of the most offensive kind of language during hours that children were likely to be listening.
Worthy FM’s station manager and licensee Joanne Schofield apologised, saying she was sorry the track ‘was broadcast and that someone was offended by it’.
The festival’s radio station is run by volunteers and called Worthy FM (Picture: PA)
Little Simz’s song was played and contained offensive lyrics (Picture: WireImage)
Continuing on, she accepted ‘that a mistake was made in playing a non-edited version’ of the music and that they were strengthening their ‘compliance controls’ in light of the incident.
At this year’s festival Little Simz, 28, headlined the West Holts stage with a performance that was widely praised and presenters had wanted to promote the slot.
However, when they ran a search on their computer system this ‘unfortunately searched beyond the playlist itself and returned a result from the noncompliant folder,’ they said.
The summer fixture takes place at Worth Farm in Somerset every year (Picture: Getty Images)
Billie Eilish headlined last summer’s proceedings (Picture: Getty Images)
The station’s computer system will now only feature music that has been approved to be played on air and will not be connected to the internet amid a list of other changes.
Joanne also noted the programme had not been aimed at younger people and at the time of broadcast ‘listener numbers were demonstrably low’.
British rapper and singer Little Simz – real name Simbiatu Ajikawo – won the prestigious Mercury Prize this year for her fourth album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert.
She was also named Best New Artist at the Brit Awards and was singled out by Adele, who sent her ‘massive congratulations’.
Metro.co.uk contacted Glastonbury Festival and Little Simz for comment.
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Miss Understood was aired before 7pm.
