Seizing the Scandal – The Coldplay Couple and Creative Relevance

Stephen Colbert, in a 2018 interview with Howard Stern said, “My show is about whatever the conversation is today.  We’re about what the audience is talking about right now.”

The big story last week was the couple that got caught cheating at the Coldplay concert.  I need to tell you no more because it was everywhere and you know it.  Your audience does, too.  We are in the engagement business, and we win when we own the moment.  So, I wondered what radio shows did with that topic as it lived at the center of the pop culture universe.  How did they seize the moment?

There have been two phases of radio to me.  Pre- and post-deregulation.  I have affectionately referred to the days before big companies could own everything as the wild, wild west.  We’d come up with an idea today based on something in the news and it’d be on-air-tomorrow.  And often, it was loud and outrageous and captured the imagination of the audience, which was very good.  It created talk for us as FOMO set in which gave us an extra measure of listenership.

Much of today’s radio is filled with fear because every idea must be vetted thought multiple layers and, as I break out in a cold sweat…the lawyers (whose reflexive move is to tell us why we can’t do it).  We need to get back to what we were.  Not reckless, but imaginative.

Because the central theme to the Coldplay couple story is so universal (it was about relationships and cheating) and the topic was so pervasive, I asked my radio Facebook friends what they did to tie themselves into the story, so the audience stopped on them.  Here’s a sampling (with tons of kudos to each for compelling into their show Stephen Colbert’s vision for his – being about the moment):

  • Mojo in the Morning at Channel 95.5 Detroit did Cheat Away at Coldplay where they asked listeners to confess their affair on-air to win tickets to the group’s concert in Miami.
  • Karson and Kennedy, MIX 104.1, Boston did a custom song in Kennedy’s weekly feature The Impossible Parody heard here and seen here. Because this happened in Boston, they also gave away tickets to the concert with Karson’s Cold Plunge for Coldplay where the first listener to get him into the dunk tank won (a great video for social media).
  • Dave Wheeler at Townsquare’s Big Frog 104 in central New York got the station’s mascot in on the action with a social media image.
  • The great Paige Neinaber had some of his shows do pictures of talent hugging their HR directors in the same pose.
  • Kyle, Bryan, and Sarah at WRAL-FM, Raleigh are seemingly in a thruple in their social media post.
  • Christine and Salt, WTIC-FM, Hartford had an appearance planned with a local baseball team. They wanted to record a video for the jumbotron warning cheaters at the game what could happen.  The team nixed it, but I absolutely love that they came up with the idea.
  • At KLOS, Los Angeles Nik Carter gave the 95th caller dinner for them and their sidepiece when he played a Coldplay song. Likewise, Otis at The O Show suggested giving away three-packs to something.  For you, your wife, and your mistress.
  • Heather Froglear at K-FROG, Riverside and Moug and Karla, B96 Chicago did social media images to go along with on-air content (here and here).
  • Producer Melissa Bunting from AMP Mornings with Katie and Ed in Calgary shared this break about the story. Great use of audio.
  • In a brainstorm with a show, we considered hiring divorce lawyers for the spouses of both people involved.
  • Everyone got in on this, including the Philadelphia Phillies, who did the Coldplay Kiss Cam.  This isn’t radio, but watch to the end because it’s hysterical.  We need to do this, too.

All great stuff that put each show in the story and in a way that made the audience stop to take notice.  Sample the above to get inspired.  Bravo to everyone noted here (and you if you did something, too) for changing their show the next day when this story took over the national conversation.  Note that not everything above required a prize – it just needed some innovation.

To continue to thrive, we need more mischief in radio.  We must seize moments when the big stories appear.  If we’re about right now in inventive ways that fit the show’s brand image, listeners will want to be around us.  Let’s create more FOMO like we used to.

Radio doesn’t have a listening problem.  We have a top-of-mind awareness problem.  And that’s on us to fix, just like the shows above did with the Coldplay couple story.  Radio wins when it’s about right now in clever, unique ways.