Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes ink three-year $100 MILLION deal with Sirius XM for exclusive rights to ads on SmartLess podcast

SmartLess hosts Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes have inked a $100 million deal for Sirius XM to gain some exclusive rights to the podcast for three years, according to Bloomberg. 

The agreement is part of a wider contract between the streaming company and SmartLess Media, giving Sirius the rights to distribute and sell ads for the podcast and other programs including Bad Dates. 

Slated to take effect later this year, the deal also includes some live events and access to re-run old episodes, such as the November 2022 instalment starring President Joe Biden talking about his daily routine. 

Over the past three years, Arnett, Bateman and Hayes have gained a hefty following while interviewing world leaders, music stars and Hollywood execs, and staging live events.  

The trio launched SmartLess as a weekly show in 2020, and it quickly became one of the most popular podcasts in America – ranked fourth in the US by Apple for 2023. 

SmartLess hosts Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes (pictured together) have inked a $100 million deal for Sirius XM to gain some exclusive rights to the podcast for three years, according to Bloomberg 

Slated to take effect later this year, the deal also includes some live events and access to re-run old episodes, such as the November 2022 instalment starring President Joe Biden talking about his daily routine (pictured) 

Sirius, which finished the third quarter of 2023 with 34 million subscribers according to Bloomberg, launched a new streaming service last year in an attempt compete with streaming giants like Spotify and Amazon

It followed only Crime Junkie, The Daily by the New York Times, and Dateline NBC, for the most-listened to pod last year. 

On Spotify it came in eighth – with The Joe Rogan Experience ranked first, Call Her Daddy second, and Crime Junkie third.  

Its ginormous – and growing – fanbase has made SmartLess hot property for leading distributors. Amazon.com Inc. shelled out up to $80 million for the rights to stream the show over three years, according to Bloomberg. 

The online marketplace giant released new episodes on its Amazon Music and Wondery+ services for a week before they became available elsewhere in a ploy to attract new listeners, while retaining the rights to some SmartLess titles. 

‘Over the past several years, we have doubled down on our commitment to podcasting, and with the addition of SmartLess, we are strengthening our leadership position in podcasting,’ Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM’s president and chief content officer, said in a statement. 

Sirius, which finished the third quarter of 2023 with 34 million subscribers according to Bloomberg, launched a new streaming service last year in an attempt compete with streaming giants like Spotify and Amazon.

However, at the same time, Spotify and Amazon have been cutting back on such spending after it didn’t pay the dividends they expected. 

Company bosses initially leapt at the opportunity to capitalize on the booming podcast business – a $2.3 billion industry which has grown by 25 percent over the past year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. 

But Spotify’s multi-million-dollar deals with the likes of Harry and Meghan, Kim Kardashian and the Obamas have coincided with a huge net loss for the subscription streaming service. 

By far the biggest podcast deal Spotify has is with Joe Rogan, who was paid an estimated $200 million as part of an exclusive multi-year deal in 2020. 

Spotify lost $565 million in the last six months up to June on $6.65 billion in revenue, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Spotify stocks surged during the pandemic period, along with those of many tech companies as people spent more time streaming and online, but plummeted amid the launch of high-profile podcasts last year 

SmartLess hosts posing with Joe Biden after they interviewed him in November 2022

The firm is today worth around $31 billion – down from $70 billion at the peak of its powers in early 2021.

So Sirius’ $100 million deal with SmartLess is a big gamble. But the show has already got off to a flying start this year with celebrity interviews with the likes of Mark Ruffalo. 

Speaking to the show this month, Ruffalo recalled learning he had a ‘golf ball-sized’ brain tumor in 2001, following a disturbing dream.

The 56-year-old actor described learning that he ‘had a brain tumor after the success of You Can Count on Me.’

After having a nightmare ‘so intense’ that it prompted him to get a CAT scan to ‘deal with it immediately,’ the father-of-three revealed to the hosts that he went to the doctor with a ‘sense of doom.’