Well, New Heights did the thing Amazon was paying it to do. The Kelce brothers delivered Taylor Swift, and Taylor delivered exactly what Amazon was betting on when the company broke off nine figures to bring the show to its Wondery brand. So now what?
Taylor Swift sitting down with her boyfriend and his brother kind of feels like Mulder and Scully finally getting together on The X-Files. Fans anticipated it forever, but when it finally happened, it became a kind of dead end. I don’t think Jason and Travis Kelce are planning to sunset the show, so what’s the follow-up? Is there one?
New Heights is in a tough position. Swift’s appearance broke records and spawned memes. It was a cultural moment, but the reality is New Heights is never going to be worth $100,000,000 to Amazon ever again.
That’s not a comment on the show’s quality (we’ll get to that later). It’s a comment on the state of podcasting and how any show finds and creates its value. Swift was the Kelces’ magic bullet. Now that it’s been fired, it’s going to be really tough to justify that giant paycheck in this environment.
We’ll Take This Way Too Far
I’m not here to tell you that America is over podcasts. Edison Research’s latest Infinite Dial survey found that the audience for the medium is at an all-time high, but the space is turning into a bloated, indistinguishable blob. Now that the industry has decided the real value is in interviews, not narrative storytelling, all of the top podcasts sound exactly the same.
Think about Donald Trump’s digital media tour before the election in November. He went on like five different shows and talked about the same things on each of them. The episodes were largely indistinguishable from one another. Which one anybody chose to listen to was largely dependent on their already established consumption patterns.
Personally, I learned a lot about New Heights thanks to Swift’s visit to the show. For instance, I did not know that the Kelces’ audience was already majority female. I also learned that the show had been on a bit of a decline before her appearance.
Combine those facts with Amazon’s decision to significantly scale back on original podcasts, and you have to acknowledge a tough reality. The struggles are real across the company and the industry, and the Kelces’ deal sticks out like a sore thumb. Even if it doesn’t come from Amazon, there will be a lot of pressure on the brothers.
You Got Tired Of My Scheming
There is power in stringing you along. The Kelces and Amazon knew that when the deal was done and their pact was formed. The idea that Taylor Swift could show up on an episode of New Heights was powerful. Any new show could be THE show.
Not only is that gone now, but trying to recreate it could be dangerous. Before Swift came on New Heights, there was anticipation. Trying to lean into the idea that she could come back might work for a little while, but it could quickly turn to frustration. It may even turn into resentment if a significant portion of the audience comes to the conclusion that she is never coming back—and that’s a very real possibility.
Think about it. Taylor Swift enjoys a level of celebrity that no pop star has since probably the height of Michael Jackson’s fame in the 1980s. When you’re that famous, you get to set the agenda and make the rules, so everyone involved with New Heights has to ask themselves, “What do we really do for Taylor Swift?”
It’s hard to watch that episode and not come to the conclusion that Swift and Travis Kelce are clearly in love. She would do anything for him, but that doesn’t mean she’ll do the same favor multiple times. At some point, the request gets old.
It’s Miserable And Magical
So there’s an elephant in the room that we have to talk about when we discuss what the potential is for New Heights. The show just isn’t that good. It’s not bad necessarily, but without the element of tuning in to see if Travis reveals some intimate detail of his life with Taylor, I am not sure what the appeal is for so many people.
New Heights lives in a weird space. My former colleague Dave Greene is a big fan. He once called it “exactly what sports fans want from a podcast.” I disagree.
So many podcasts begin with the idea that it’s just gonna be two dudes talking. An entertainer is smart enough to realize that idea needs refining before anything is recorded. The people that don’t realize that and still find success do so because they are able to grow beyond those initial limitations. I don’t think New Heights has done that.
When I have given the show a chance, I hear a wildly inconsistent product. There’s sports, but it isn’t exactly a sports show. There are laughs, but it isn’t exactly a comedy show.
Jason Kelce is an entertaining, media-savvy guy. Travis Kelce, as best I can tell, is there to say, “That’s crazy,” after every story Jason tells. That’s kinda the show in a nutshell. Any time an episode gets attention from outside its dedicated fan base, it’s because something extraordinary happened.
Not only can you not count on Taylor Swift coming back with regularity, as mentioned above, but another new season of Ted Lasso probably isn’t getting announced again anytime soon either.
None of what I have written here means it’s time for New Heights to end. None of it means I am betting against the Kelces. Podcasting isn’t “the next big thing” anymore. It’s mainstream right now, and it’s tough to stand out in the mainstream if the show doesn’t have a real differentiator.
Taylor Swift is as big of a differentiator as anyone could ever ask for on their podcast, but that is a bump that comes once and comes on her schedule. Amazon can’t go to the Kelces and say, “Okay, Taylor came on. That was the bet we were making, so now we’re cutting your salary in half.” Amazon is still on the hook for $100,000,000, and the Kelce brothers still have $100,000,000 expectations for their show.
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Demetri Ravanos is a former columnist and editor for Barrett Media. He is the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host of the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
