I doubt the word "crap" was used in a BBC memo. "Pretensious" is quite plausible though.
In the meantime Fairport Convention, The Beatles, The Stones and John Martyn (that I can think of, there were lots more) did get air time, so Auntie Beeb wasn't just sticking in her heels and saying no to anybody with long hair.
I actually find those comments quite interesting because not everybody was a fan of some of those artists. Some critics had a less than charitable view of Bowie. It's argued in some quarters that he's all artifice and no art. The Beeb would also not be the only people to assert that Led Zeppelin were very derivative, and there's a good case for that based on the output that anybody could have judged in 1969. (Some might say that the various out of court settlements that LZ made show that they were something more than merely derivative).
We see all these artists with the benefit of hindsight. We look back on Led Zeppelin now and we see the third album (or I do, a lot of folks hate that one), Stairway to Heaven, the Physical Graffitti album. None of that was visible in 1969, and Led Zeppelin were, it could be argued, just pumping out old blues tunes and Bert Jansch imitations at high volume. One doesn't have to agree, I'm not sure I do (though on another day I might), but these are things over which reasonable people might disagree and I don't see the Beeb's verdicts here as being off the radar.
