Podcast Corner: Was Taylor's album announcment a new era in podcasting or Swiftienomics?

Taylor Swift talks about reclaiming her masters, wrapping The Eras Tour, and The Life of a Showgirl on the New Heights podcast with Jason and Travis Kelce. Picture: New Heights / Youtube

Taylor Swift picked her boyfriend’s podcast to announce her new album last week — and 18 million people watched on YouTube.

Does it herald the next, ahem, era of podcasting?

Or, like her tours and her place in the music industry, is it simply Taylor Swift economics?

New Heights launched in September 2022, offering NFL insider knowledge between two brothers and elite players, Travis and Jason Kelce. 

It reached new levels of interest after Travis and Taylor started dating; producer Brandon shared a small note last week from the July 2023 episode that he says “changed everything” — an ad read with the nudge for “Any personal anecdotes. Travis, did you go to the Eras Tour?”

Taylor Swift, often seen at her boyfriend’s NFL games since, was by his side on the season premiere of New Heights on August 14, announcing all the details of her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, in her first in-depth interview in years.

As Ethan Millman wrote in the Hollywood Reporter: “This was safe. No moment carried any risk.

Anything Swift didn’t want out in the world won’t ever see the light of day. And so, Swift could relax.”

Taylor Swift: The Life of A Showgirl

As of Monday morning, the two-hour episode has more than 18.3 million views on YouTube. 

For comparison, the Joe Rogan Experience’s biggest hit — Bob Lazar and Jeremy Corbell in 2019 — has 64 million views after six years.

Swift’s episode peaked at more than 1.3m concurrent live viewers — Donald Trump’s appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience last year had 800,000 concurrent live viewers and currently sits on 59 million total views.

Per the AP, the most-watched podcast episode ever on YouTube, is Abdulrahman Abu Maleh’s interview with relationship coach Yasser Hazimi for  Secrets to Thriving Relationships from the Saudi Arabian company Thmanyah. In two years it has racked up 144 million views.

So is Swift’s appearance on New Heights the peak of 2025’s new era of video podcasts? YouTube official Tim Katz, in an interview with Vulture earlier this year, said:  “I think there’s an element of community when somebody actually sees the podcast host or the content — there’s
something about them watching that is more engaging. They feel a connection with that podcaster in a unique way that goes beyond what you can get from audio alone.”

People wanted to see Taylor Swift, wanted to hear about the new album. Many watched the two-hour episode like they would a hot new show on Netflix.

Previously the word ‘podcast’ conjured narrative hits such as West Cork and Serial. 

New Heights’ season premiere arrived barely two weeks after Wondery — the studio behind Dr Death, American Scandal and, indeed, New Heights — announced 110 job cuts, moving its narrative shows to Audible (Amazon purchased Wondery in 2021). 

In podcasting, as in pop, there’s Taylor Swift — and then there’s everybody else.