Time's Square New Year's Eve countdown got underway, Dec. 31 in New York City. CBS News reported that the annual event was hosted by Ryan Seacrest and Jenny McCarthy. Popularly referred to as "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2015", the New Year's Eve special aired on ABC beginning at 8 p.m. ET till the wee hours of the night as the clock hit midnight, January 1st, 2015.

Taylor Swift, Iggy Azalea, Skillrex, Florida Georgia Line, Elton John, One Direction and Magic! are among the performers that were set to grace this ABC special for New Year 2015.

Seacrest openly expressed pleasure about hosting the Times Square New Year's Eve countdown this year. In a Zap It interview published in a December 31 article, Seacrest had these things to say about the excitement that people should expect to surround the event:

"It is five-and-a-half-hours for the full sweep of live coverage and performances, so it's a real marathon of television."

"Because of the event and the energy and the electricity, you don't really think about it when you're on the air. There's so much anticipation leading up to midnight, it really goes by very, very quickly.

Seacrest was likewise vocal about looking forward to country turned pop singer, Taylor Swift, perform on Time's Square New Year's Eve countdown for 2015:

"I've known her a long time,"

"She's been on this show before, early on in her career. We knew she was going to make a leap into pop music from country, and her team and ours decided to join forces and come up with a plan for the end of the year that would celebrate what we knew would be a big success."