Coldplaying with low fidelity**

**FIRST ANNIVERSARY BLOG: 'kiss cam' questions of consent. Plus, beyond an optional paywall below: how Jonathan Ross told millions of viewers about my Coldplay 'crime'

Hot play before it turned cold. [Image: instaagraace/TikTok.]

Heard the one about the married boss who canoodled with his HR chief at a Coldplay concert when captured on the band’s ‘kiss cam’? There’s a good chance you have.

The 50,000-strong audience at the Massachussets stadium was dwarfed by the millions who witnessed the event as it went viral.

But I’m not going to moralise about it. I’m more interested in the surveillance aspect.

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The CEO, the poetically named Andy Byron, stepped down from his duties at tech company Astronomer after ducking down from the lens’s fierce gaze, while his alleged lover, Kristin Cabot, turned away too late to stay anonymous.

As you’ve gathered, I’m not going to dwell on the morality of the ‘Coldplay couple’, as we might call them; for one thing the digital world’s lack of nuance doesn’t seem too alive to the possible hurt caused to any children and/or other partners connected to the pair.

For another, as Sunday school lessons taught me, ‘let he [or she/they] who is without sin throw the first stone’. In other words, don’t be a hypocrite.

Let’s just say I’m not on a pebble hunt on the moral high ground.

Rather, with my interest in the media I’m more inclined to look at the issues of our old friend consent, concerning a surveillance camera used for entertainment, over which the subjects of its attention had little or no control.

Oh, and after that paywall, how Jonathan Ross ridiculed my Coldplay-related act in front of millions!

Snoop cam

As the internet was parking its tanks on old media’s lawns when I started presenting on BBC local radio in the noughties, I’d often open the door to a studio which had a little sign on it saying words to the effect, ‘This studio has a webcam which may show images of you.’ And then often a disclaimer reading something like, ‘If you object to this, please contact …’

As a freelance in a highly competitive industry was I really going to complain?

The Coldplay couple probably passed a similar sign (or signs) adopting the line, ‘going beyond this point implies your consent to appearing on camera’, or something to that effect.

But, like ticking the box a million times saying we’ve read the terms and conditions of some online contract when we’ve done no such thing, they probably barely registered it.

Let’s face it, they had other things on their mind, and not necessarily the higher meaning of Chris Martin’s lyrics.

And if they knew about the so-called ‘kiss cam’ which was accompanied by an ad libbed lyric to the camera’s images by Martin in something called the ‘Jumbotron’ song, they probably thought it would happen to other people.

I mean, what were the chances of their being caught on camera? I make it x divided by 50,000, where x is the number of couples featured that night, since you ask. Or should that be x/25,000 to allow for the pairings?

Hang on, not everyone’s partnered, so it’s, erm …

Well, a smallish number. And our star-crossed lovers were probably too busy hugging to ‘do the math’.

Don’t take your lover to a gig where you might end up on a screen, might be one lesson from this. Although if you’re carrying on with someone, you could be spotted by a mutual friend – or, more sinisterly, enemy – anywhere in public.

Regulations

One of the joys of being in presentation and/or production at the BBC for many staff is having to scan the pages of the corporation’s editorial guidelines so you know what you can and cannot do.

It’s easy to mock these broadcasting commandments as bureaucratic, and a jobsworth’s charter. And I see they’ve even tried to make it look sexy online with a masthead of coloured lines jauntily disappearing into a black hole of infinity at the top.

It might be hinting at what happens to your BBC career if you ignore the regs.

But behind pretty much every rule contained therein there’s some historical wound of the organisation over the last century it’s been in existence, some screw-up which caused individuals and/or the British Broadcasting Corporation pain.

In mercifully rare cases, there’s even death.

One of the first shows I worked on in TV was my radio hero Noel Edmonds’ foray into Saturday peak-time TV, The Late Late Breakfast Show. Its director/producer Michael Hurll liked pushing the envelope, to say the least, for live escapades.

After a number of injuries were sustained by members of the public, what finally got the show cancelled was the death of Michael Lush in a bungee jump that was, without doubt, mismanaged. The BBC was subsequently prosecuted. Safety precautions had been jettisoned over cost concerns in favour of audience titillation and numbers.

It was literally an accident waiting to happen.

On a less life-and-death level, one of the rules in the guidelines, number 6.4.51 if I recall correctly (and I do – I’ve just looked it up!), refers to deception for comedy and satirical purposes, thusly:

The deception should not be designed to humiliate and care should be taken not to distress or unduly embarrass those involved.

You could argue either way whether suddenly appearing unexpectedly on camera strictly constitutes a deception – those cheeky warning/consent signs might help the Coldplay show production’s subsequent defence – but I’d be pretty confident any self-respecting BBC entertainment producer these days would resist a live ‘kiss cam’ TV equivalent situation, though pre-recording could provide a virtual safety net.

Poetic justice?

Is there a moral to all this?

Don’t take your lover to a gig where you might end up on a screen, might be one lesson. Although if you’re carrying on with someone, you could be spotted by a mutual friend – or, more sinisterly, enemy – anywhere in public.

My uncle once told me of someone who was spotted by mistake with their lover at a funeral. There could have been an extra two people wanting the earth to swallow them up.

I realise I’ve missed the big picture, pardon the pun, that it’s best never to be unfaithful. In the same way it’s best to read all the terms and conditions.

Yeah, right – like that’s always going to happen, knowing humans. Either of those things.

Ms Cabot stood down from her role at Astronomer HR. I’m not aware she’s issued any public comment.

But we might be left asking, along with Lady Caroline Lamb, lover of the CEO’s poetic namesake Lord Byron, whether Andy Byron really is ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know’?

Or just another flawed human being like the rest of us?

Thanks for reading this far and for subscribing, if you have done.

For that story of how chatshow host Jonathan Ross outed my Coldplay ‘crime’ in front of millions, please subscribe.

You’ll also get extra material on how live cams caught out both U2’s Bono and broadcaster/producer Chris Evans. Hear how Evans’ slip on live TV appeared to give an unintentional window into his soul.