Smart Girls at the Party, the video content company co-founded by Parks and Rec star Amy Poehler, has been acquired today for an undisclosed amount by Legendary Entertainment.
Smart Girls, which was created in 2008 by Poehler, Meredith Walker, and Amy Miles, brings in about 5 million monthly views to content on its YouTube Channel, according to Legendary. The move comes after Legendary picked up Chris Hardwick's Nerdist and Felicia Day's Geek & Sundry -- two web video content networks that have shown significant growth over the past two years -- earlier this year to help launch a new digital video network that presumably will be similar in scope to other YouTube multichannel networks like Disney-owned Maker Studios or Fullscreen Media.
These multichannel networks have become very attractive to large, legacy media companies like Legendary, which view them as a way to catch up on what audiences are watching when they aren't in movie theaters or in front of a TV. Typically, these networks will see the bulk of video views coming from YouTube, but they also leverage other video distribution channels to increase the revenue they generate.
With Legendary, it's a bit different than other recent multichannel networks heading to big media. Legendary seems intent on collecting smaller networks to combine into one, thus being able to take advantage of deals and partnerships related to video distribution, marketing, and advertising. This will also allow these smaller video networks to focus on what they do best -- create content.