When there's a celebrity crossover, or when two big names from their respective fields come together, the hype is bound to be high. When two such personalities are publicly known to be dating, like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, the excitement is even greater.
The musical superstar made an appearance on her boyfriend's podcast, New Heights, which he co-hosts with his brother and fellow NFL star Jason Kelce on YouTube, instantly blowing up the internet. She also helped rocket the channel to the top of the livestreaming charts and surpass several podcast-related milestones.
This two-hour-long special reached 1.3 million Peak Viewers (PV), making it by far the New Heights channel's most popular broadcast ever. For context, the podcast, while popular by itself, had only reached a peak of 141,821 viewers previously, reiterating just how much hype Taylor Swift and her relationship with Travis Kelce generate among fans online.
The 1.3 million peak concurrent viewers put the New Heights channel in third for the most popular livestreams across platforms for the past week. It is also among the 15 top broadcasts this year by PV, taking pride of place as the only chat show/podcast/digital audio or video program on a table dominated by sports entries.
The August 13 podcast also broke several other records, including surpassing Donald Trump's interview with Joe Rogan by concurrent viewers. In fact, the episode crashed at the end of its one-hour-and-forty-five-minute run due to the sheer number of viewers trying to get in on the action.
This only worked to the benefit of other platforms, as listeners tuned in to services like Apple, Amazon, Spotify, and Usery to continue listening to the podcast. Not many celebrities can boast this kind of effect on livestreaming, but Taylor Swift is one of them, as she is renowned for having one of the most loyal fan bases out there.
Spotify also confirmed that the American superstar's appearance on the Kelce brothers' podcast helped it enjoy a 3,000% rise in overall listenership. It also generated a 618% spike in the number of female listeners, reiterating that the Grammy winner's fanbase, known as Swifties, was made up heavily of this demographic.
The podcast led to an overall 2,500% increase in average streams of the episode on the Swedish music streaming service. Lastly, the entire video, now available on the New Heights YouTube channel, has already amassed over 14 million views.
What led to these internet-melting numbers was the fact that Taylor Swift had a number of highly anticipated announcements for her fans. Most important of all was the reveal of her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, which will be released on 3 October.
This upcoming album features a collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter, part of the opening act of Taylor Swift's record-breaking Eras Tour, on the title track. The 35-year-old also delighted her fans by unveiling the cover art for the album, which will contain 12 tracks, as seen below:
- The Fate of Ophelia
- Elizabeth Taylor
- Opalite
- Father Figure
- Eldest Daughter
- Ruin the Friendship
- Actually Romantic
- Wi$h Li$t
- Wood
- CANCELLED!
- Honey
- The Life of a Showgirl (feat Sabrina Carpenter)
Both Swift and Kelce got a bit emotional talking about the former reclaiming the rights to her first six albums. It was first announced in May this year that she had bought the rights to these albums, ending a long-running battle of a decade for the ownership of her music.
For a lot of fans and Swifties, just seeing their idol and her fiancé in a relaxing and comfortable setting with each other was enough to tune in. After all, the two rarely make public appearances together and have not spoken much about their private lives.
Recently, the explosion of livestreaming has made household names out of some of the world's top content creators. Taylor Swift's earth-shattering appearance on her beau Travis Kelce's podcast showed that the opposite can also be as successful.
After all, someone as globally famous as her can also massively boost the viewership dynamics of any broadcast. The winner ultimately is the content creation industry, which continues to benefit from these milestone moments and presents itself as an attractive way for celebrities to stay in touch with fans, critics, and followers.
