Taylor Swift's chat with the Kelces on 'New Heights' marks a milestone
moment for podcasts
[August 15, 2025]
By DAVID BAUDER
Since nothing Taylor Swift ever does is small, her two-hour conversation
with boyfriend Travis Kelce and his brother Jason Kelce on their “New
Heights” podcast is a watershed moment for a media format that has
already outlived the device it was named for.
By Thursday afternoon, Wednesday night's talk had already been seen more
than 11.7 million times on YouTube. But that's only a fraction of its
circulation — clips distributed on Instagram, TikTok, X and elsewhere
have received more than 400 million views, and the episode was also
available for streaming on audio platforms.
Swift, who infrequently gives interviews to journalists, revealed key
information about her upcoming album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” and
talked about her relationships with Travis Kelce and her family, and her
joy of gaining full control of her past work — a yearslong quest.
It was a revelation for fans with whom she's primarily communicated
through her music and social media Easter eggs, a treasure hunt of clues
about what she's doing professionally.
“We have not heard Taylor speak in like a long-form interview like that
in about five years,” Alex Antonides, a superfan from Dallas, told The
Associated Press. “She’s never been in that comfortable of a situation,
either. It’s always been like more professional, like a professional
interviewer asking her questions. And then this is like with her
boyfriend and his brother. So that was ... an environment we’ve truly
never seen her in before.”
Celebrities like a friendly face for public talks
Swift cemented a trend that's been seen in recent years among
entertainers, sports figures and politicians who seek to deliver
particular messages. A visit to friendly faces for a long-form
conversation beats questions from nosy, prying journalists. In this
case, Swift and Travis Kelce locked arms and cooed at each other between
admiring queries. “My boyfriend says,” Swift said in asides when Kelce
laid things on too thick.
“The Kelce brothers have become the Barbara Walters of their
generation,” said Nick Cicero, founder of Mondo Metrics, which studies
the podcast industry.
Fans ate it up. “I think it's really nice and refreshing, especially for
a woman whose primary fan base is young women, to see somebody that is
so celebratory of their partner and also not self-deprecating in a bad
way, but also really admires what they do, and they don't try to
minimize that,” one fan, Britton Copeland, who goes by Britton Rae on
TikTok, said in a Zoom interview.
Swift interpreters immediately began online discussions about What It
All Means. One fan discussed theories about the still-unheard song, “The
Fate of Ophelia,” listed as the new album's first cut. Others pointed
out that the album release date of Oct. 3 coincided with National Plaid
Day — apparently a Swift obsession — and National Boyfriend's Day.
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Donna Kelce stands with her son Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis
Kelce and Taylor Swift after the AFC Championship NFL football game
against the Buffalo Bills, Jan. 26, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP
Photo/Ashley Landis, File)
 Such Easter eggs are likely to bring
listeners back to the “New Heights” interview again and again,
meaning it could eventually stand as the most listened-to podcast
episode on YouTube ever. “It's got a chance,” Cicero said.
Podcasts emerged in the 2000s as an audio-only programming format
tied to Apple's now-defunct iPod. The New Oxford American Dictionary
called “podcast” its word of the year in 2005, even as many in the
industry sought an alternative name almost as soon as it was coined.
The well-regarded “Serial” podcasts helped bring the format into the
mainstream a decade ago. Particularly since the pandemic, and with
the explosive growth of YouTube and personalities like Joe Rogan,
video podcasts have become far more popular. Like most interview
podcasts, “New Heights” can also be enjoyed in an audio format — and
it's background noise even for many who air it on YouTube — but
being able to see Swift and the Kelces interact has its benefits.
Will Swift outdraw President Trump's appearance with Rogan?
Rogan's interview with President Donald Trump was a key moment in
the 2024 presidential campaign, and has been seen 59 million times
on YouTube in nine months. Certainly Swifties — and possibly Trump
himself — will be eager to see if the “New Heights” interview
exceeds that number. Swift is among the celebrities who has drawn
the president's ire.
It has further to go to be a record-setter, though. The most-watched
podcast episode ever on YouTube, and likely the most-consumed
podcast ever, is Abdulrahman Abu Maleh's interview with relationship
coach Yasser Hazimi for “Secrets to Thriving Relationships” from the
Saudi Arabian company Thmanyah. It has racked up 144 million views
in two years.
Swift's and the Kelces' teams were was particularly skillful in
creating a huge demand for the interview with how its spread clips
across various social media platforms, said Tom Webster, founder of
Sounds Profitable, a firm that analyzes the podcast industry. By
Thursday morning, Instagram highlights alone from the interview were
viewed more than 350 million times, Cicero said.
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Associated Press journalist Alicia Rancilio contributed to this
report from Detroit.
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