Not Rolling over: The Stones still debating Glastonbury TV coverage hours before headline gig

The Rolling Stones will be dropping off at Worthy Farm on their 50 and Counting anniversary jaunt (Getty Images)

The Rolling Stones are still telling the BBC they can't always get what they want when it comes to television coverage of their set at Glastonbury.

The Stones and the broadcaster were today locked in negotiations about how much of their performance could be shown on television - despite reports of a compromise last week - with just hours to go before tomorrow's headline performance by the rock veterans.

The band have been haggling with the broadcaster and do not expect to resolve matters today.

A source close to the Stones told the Evening Standard: “The band will decide how much will be shown tomorrow afternoon. They signed up to perform on stage — not to appear on a television programme. Glasto is not a TV show.”

The Stones insist their original fee was for performing only, and did not include TV rights, overseas transmissions and repeats. They relented to allow an hour of their show to be broadcast by the BBC, but the final sticking point is coverage on BBC World and repeats.

The BBC is providing its most extensive coverage of the festival ever, with 250 hours of live music on TV and the internet. It has sent 296 staff to Worthy Farm, where the Arctic Monkeys headline the Pyramid Stage tonight. Mumford and Sons will close the festival on Sunday night.

A spokesman for the BBC confirmed that talks with the Stones were taking place. He said: “The discussions with artists are absolutely business as usual. Our conversations with the Rolling Stones have been extremely constructive and are ongoing.”

Meanwhile, Sir Mick Jagger has admitted that he finds his music career “intellectually undemanding” and said his original idea of becoming a teacher might have been a “gratifying” alternative.

In an interview on Radio 4’s Today programme to be broadcast tomorrow, the star said he also considered a career as a dancer but was put off by the prospect of “so many injuries”.

Sir Mick, who was a student at the LSE when the Stones started out, told John Humphrys: “A schoolteacher would have been very gratifying, I’m sure. There are millions of things you would have loved to have done, a politician, a journalist... I thought of being a journalist once.

“All these things you think of when you’re a teenager, you can think, well, I would have liked to have done that but that’s completely pointless but I don’t feel frustrated for a lack of control at all and I’m very pleased with what I’ve done.

“Everyone wants to have done more things in their lives. It is a slightly intellectually undemanding thing to do, being a rock singer, but, you know, you make the best of it.”