Bob Dylan: Australia’s Today show wrongly claims singer is dead live on-air

Embarrassing blunder was detected 30 minutes later

An Australian breakfast show has apologised for incorrectly claiming Bob Dylan was dead.

The series, title Today, was running a segment on the news that Dylan's documents has been auctioned off for $495,000 (£373,000).

A banner trailed at the bottom of the screen read, “Late singer’s documents sell for $495 thousand," despite Dylan being very much alive.

The host Richard “Dickie” Wilkins embarrassingly apologised for the error 30 minutes later, stating: “We need to make a correction now."

Wilkins added: “About half an hour ago on our entertainment chat, we incorrectly ran a banner on your screen about Bob Dylan. It was false and we apologise for any confusion.”

Included among the items that were auctioned off in Boston were transcripts of interviews between Dylan, 79, and American blues artist Tony Glover, who was a longtime friend and confidant of the musician.

These interviews took place in 1971.

Dylan, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, broke into music around the same Minneapolis coffee house scene as Glover, who died last year.

The documents were put up for auction by his widow.