Intro for August 19, 2025

Dear Gossips,   

There were some interesting numbers in the Puck newsletter on Monday for someone who loves numbers and her fans: Taylor Swift. This is related to her appearance on Jason and Travis Kelce’s podcast, New Heights, last week. 

And the ratings are in. Per Puck: 

“The NFL brothers’ New Heights podcast—already a top 10 show, per Nielsen’s latest report—hit 13 million YouTube views and a 3,000 percent spike in Spotify listens in the first 24 hours for its latest episode…”

None of that should be surprising, the showgirl has always been a kingmaker, and this is one of the major factors behind why the Kelces were able to sign that deal last summer.

The other number, however, is a f-cking bummer, sorry. It’s been a month since CBS cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert which was widely interpreted to be the network bending over for the current American president. Then a couple of weeks later, Fox News personality Greg Gutfeld was invited to be on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Greg has consistently remained uncancelled even though he says the most appalling sh-t, regularly. Including suggesting that white people should reclaim their own n-word after his already liberal use of the r-word. For more on this, read Andrew Sanford's commentary on Jimmy and The Tonight Show’s decision to feature Greg Gutfeld and his review of the episode.

That was depressing enough and now the ratings have been reported. According to Puck, The Tonight Show saw a 28% bump “from same day to Live+3 audience for last week’s Tonight Show with Fox News personality Greg Gutfeld as a guest, the most watched (non-sports-delayed) episode for Jimmy Fallon since 2020, when his guest was Barack Obama”. 

How do you think other media outlets will respond to these numbers? You could argue that they’ve already responded because they’ve already over the last year dialed back on responsible, investigative journalism and pop culture coverage, along with inclusion initiatives, so it’s not like they won’t keep chasing that corrosive high. In 2025, clearly, humanity is thriving. 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey