Taylor Swift’s favourite podcast

The most important event on the Swiftie calendar this week is the new episode of Jason and Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast which comes out at 7pm ET tonight (Wednesday). 

I don’t listen to this show regularly but I do know that I typically see clips from it on socials, especially if Taylor Swift is mentioned, during the work day on Wednesdays, their usual drop date. Interesting then that the time is different for the Taylor Swift episode, which of course will end up being the biggest episode in the history of New Heights and will likely break some kind of podcasting record. Again, as I noted yesterday, when the Kelces signed their reported $100 million deal last year, the Taylor Swift connection had to have been a factor. 

The general release rule for pods is to do it as early in the day as possible so that people can listen on their commutes and maximise listenership. That kind of rule, obviously, doesn’t apply to a superstar like Taylor Swift because time doesn’t matter for her fanbase, they’re already programmed to drop whatever they’re doing on a moment’s notice when she throws up the signal. And the media is so focused on her, there’s no concern that nobody will cover it, no matter what time of day or night. 

My point is, if audience engagement wasn’t a concern, what was the motivation? Given that it’s Taylor Swift, the 7pm ET drop would be her motivation… right? What, then, is her motivation? While the Swifties ponder that question and whether or not it means that the podcast ends up being a prelude to something else that might be dropping a few hours later, there’s yet another promo that New Heights shared this morning. 

My biggest takeaway from this clip is how impressively Jason Kelce continues to improve as a broadcaster. I like how they’ve set up the shot so that when he’s reading from his script for the introduction, his eyeline is perfect. And even though he’s screaming her list of achievements at pretty much one (loud ass) volume, he takes pauses at exactly the right time, emphasises the right words, and does a staccato with the right combination of words. Example: “… in the First.Week.Alone!” 

I have been a broadcaster for almost 20 years. Please trust me when I say that not everyone can do a TV/radio read, there’s an art to it, it requires skill and practice, and not everyone is suited to it; Travis, for example, though he’s getting better, is not. And that’s OK, we can’t all be good at the same things. Jason, though, is very good at this thing. And Travis excels at the short interjections. He’s cute here as the cheerleader, with his hand on Taylor’s thigh (Beckham style! IYKYK), the hype man to his brother’s rap. 

As for what Jason’s actually saying… the best part is that he’s giving her claim, as a fan, to “19 wins, 2 AFC titles, and a Super Bowl”, LOLOLOLOL. The only thing missing here is what she’s done for the NFL because she’s delivered several ratings wins for the league too. 

And then there’s what Taylor says, because in the comments Swifties are already obsessing over the “47 seconds” and if that’s some kind of Easter egg about the release date for The Life of a Showgirl. I’m bad at counting so please correct me if I’m wrong – 47 days from today is Tuesday 30 September. Our resident music contributor, MC, might remind you here that Tuesdays used to be when labels released new music. That changed ten years ago, actually, in 2015 when new music Tuesday became new music Friday. And this is relevant because that’s how sales are tracked, starting from Friday to the following week. An artist can technically release music on any day if they want to but if they do, the numbers will only count up to the following Friday so they’d be missing out on sales from a few days… not that Taylor Swift would ever have to worry about this because she moves in an hour what most artists move in a month. But then again this woman loves accomplishment numbers – Jason Kelce just emphasised that when he shouted out all those stats – so would she want to have a full week of sales counted for the biggest number? Or be able to boast that her not as big but still obviously extremely big incomplete week number is a record unto itself? 

Whatever, 47 at this point could just be a random number she blurted out and not have any significance whatsoever. Or it could be the number of diamonds on the engagement ring she picked out, haha now I’m clowning….

That last comment, for the dads, Brads, and Chads out there – gossip always wins when petty Taylor comes to play and it’s not surprising that the dude bros are already in the comments bitching about wanting her to go away. Nothing says you don’t want something like leaving a comment about not wanting it in the podcast that you claim you don’t want to listen to. 

Finally, a question for regular watchers-listeners of this show: is the lighting normally this good? I’m going to say no and speculate that she brought in her own A/V team to light the sh-t out of her for her appearance.