Did the ‘New Heights’ episode with Taylor Swift break the internet? It certainly came close. As per Hollywood Reporter, the episode crashed their stream after pulling in 15 million views in just two days, thanks to Tay-Tay’s announcement of her new album, ‘The Life of a Showgirl’. The impact was massive: Spotify listenership for the podcast skyrocketed by 3,000 percent, with female listeners alone jumping by 618 percent. At its peak, the livestream drew an incredible 1.3 million concurrent viewers.
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Yet, even with those staggering numbers, *New Heights* still fell short of dethroning ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’. Despite the surge in popularity, Rogan’s podcast continues to dominate both YouTube viewership and Spotify’s listening charts, proving just how untouchable his platform remains.
The *New Heights* episode with Taylor Swift may have set records for the Kelce brothers’ podcast, but in the grand scheme of things, it still ranks only as the “40th most popular Joe Rogan episode ever”. For context, Rogan’s highest-performing episode has pulled in a staggering “64 million views”, and his *Joe Rogan Experience* remains firmly planted at the top of the leaderboard as the most popular podcast on Spotify.
That said, ‘New Heights’ is no slouch. It consistently ranks among the “top ten podcasts” and occupied “4th place on Spotify” last week. With the Swift episode still piling up views, it will be interesting to see whether the Kelce brothers can eventually climb into the top spot, even if just for a week.
There is precedent for Rogan being briefly unseated. In 2024, “Kylie Kelce’s podcast *Not Gonna Lie” managed to knock Rogan out of the top spot for about ten days shortly after her debut—an impressive feat given Rogan’s massive following. What made it even more remarkable was her format: while Rogan’s episodes often run close to “three hours”, Kylie’s podcast lasts only “45 minutes”, designed specifically for busy mothers with limited time.
For now, “New Heights” still has ground to cover, but with the global force of Swifties behind them, the Kelce brothers may just be the ones to finally topple Rogan, at least temporarily.
