TV viewers have described the BBC’s live coverage of this year’s Reading Festival as ‘terrible’ and ‘woefully poor’ after it appeared to show ‘random artists’ instead of headline acts.

Social media users hit out at the corporation over the weekend when BBC iPlayer failed to stream The Prodigy’s headline slot on Friday night – prompting one person to denounce it as a “huge disappointment”.

Others were left confused when the BBC’s coverage skipped over Liam Gallagher’s Sunday night slot, instead making it available to watch on the video platform and BBC One from 11:35pm yesterday.

Fred Again’s Saturday night performance was similarly uploaded to the streamer at 11:40pm on Saturday, August 24.

X user @Iongwayoff described the coverage as “dire”, accusing the BBC of only “choosing the (acts) they want to show”.

Meanwhile @DylanS99 wrote: “So Liam Gallagher is live now at Reading Festival, but we can’t watch it till an hour later on BBC iPlayer. Absolute soggy biscuits who run the BBC.”

@badwaltirah added: “TV license for what? (The) BBC showing random artists from Reading Festival but not the headliners?”

And @danmarkgreen83 struck a similar tone, questioning why so much of this year’s event involved the delayed upload of recorded sets rather than “live coverage and switching to different stages”.

Rather than comprehensive coverage this year, the BBC’s broadcast of Reading and Leeds was made up of “a selection of performances from the main stage and the chevron stage” on iPlayer.

For anyone who missed the action and is still looking for their dose of Lana Del Rey, Fred Again, or Liam Gallagher, the performances will remain on iPlayer for 30 days after their upload, so even if you missed it the first time, there’s still a chance to relive all that festival fun.