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May 7, 2024:
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SmartLess celebrates its 200th episode today with Steven Martin & Martin Short. Expect chats about the talk-show anecdote, the best use of a time-machine, and have you ever heard of the word “combo?”
April 29, 2024:
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Three US presidents are united on an episode of SmartLess available today. Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes were joined by Presidents Biden, Obama and Clinton in New York City. The episode was available early on Amazon Music and Wondery+. The show switches to SiriusXM later this year.
March 29, 2024:
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Who are upcoming guests for the SmartLess podcast? Peter Hamby suggests that Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton taped an edition of the show yesterday all together. Quite the guest booking.
March 4, 2024:
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Wondery and SmartLess Media launch WikiHole with D’Arcy Carden today - a game-show style trivia game based on Wikipedia entries. It was launched with a live show in Los Angeles. The show, a production of SmartLess Media, Radio Point and Aggregate Films, remains with Wondery despite much of SmartLess's slate being signed by SiriusXM earlier in the year.
February 13, 2024:
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SiriusXM has laid-off 160 further employees - the same company that paid $100mn to buy SmartLess last month. It’s not that clear which departments will be affected.
January 30, 2024:
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SiriusXM has signed a multi-year agreement with SmartLess. The deal is reportedly worth $100mn over the next three years. New episodes of SmartLess will not be exclusive, but will publish one week early on the platform, as in the previous deal with Amazon’s Wondery, who spent around $80mn in June 2021. The deal was, again, brokered by CAA.
October 30, 2023:
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Variety writes How Wondery Brought Studio-Style Scale to Podcasting.
August 7, 2023:
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Podtrac released its US rankers for July. The average US unique monthly audience was down 3% year-on-year. The New York Times moved up to #4 publisher, overtaking NBC News. SmartLess climbed to #2 show, behind The Daily.
June 23, 2023:
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SmartLess Media and Wondery have launched a Will & Grace rewatch podcast, Just Jack & Will with Sean Hayes and Eric McCormack. In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Will & Grace, Sean Hayes and Eric McCormack, two of the stars, will co-host the new podcast to revisit this groundbreaking series. They revisit jokes, share never before heard stories, reunite with their fellow cast members and fabulous guest stars, and showcase the team who helped Will & Grace win an astounding 18 Emmy Awards.
May 17, 2023:
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Edison Research released the top 50 podcasts in the US over the past six months. New entries in the top ten are SmartLess and Dateline NBC.
March 20, 2023:
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Bad Dates with Jameela Jamil is new today from Wondery - it's the first series to debut from the SmartLess Media slate and features a panel of hilarious guests, who each share tales of their worst/craziest dates ever, and then weigh in on everyone else's misfortune. It's available exclusively on Amazon Music today, but everywhere next week.
November 3, 2022:
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US President Joe Biden appears in an episode of SmartLess released today. The show, recorded on Oct 13 in Los Angeles, is available now.
September 28, 2022:
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True crime podcaster MrBallen has signed with Amazon Music. Unlike previous Amazon Music podcast deals like SmartLess, it appears to be an exclusive deal that will remove the show from other platforms.
October 6, 2021:
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Here's what else you need to know today - there's no change in the top 5 Top US Podcasts, with The Daily still #1. SmartLess - a new entry last month at #9 - is still #9.
September 7, 2021:
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Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett's podcast SmartLess is a new entry at #9 in the Podtrac top US podcasts list for August. The show was bought by Amazon's Wondery at the end of June. Podtrac contains participating publishers only.
August 18, 2021:
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SmartLess is to become a TV show on Discovery+. It will air in 2022, and get behind-the-scenes access in the show's six-city tour.
August 17, 2021:
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Why did Amazon get into podcasting? For a share of its growing ad revenue, according to an interview with Steve Boom, the head of Amazon Music, in Bloomberg Businessweek.
June 30, 2021:
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Amazon has bought the distribution and adsales rights for the SmartLess podcast for between $60-80 million. The show will not be exclusive, but will be published one week early on Amazon Music and Wondery+. The deal was through CAA.
June 21, 2021:
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SmartLess is apparently being shopped around for $20m. As Bloomberg says, "The market for podcasting rights is growing a lot faster than the actual market for podcasts."