How Pony is Formed: Production and Business Thread

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Re: How Pony is Formed: Production and Business Thread

Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Sat May 03, 2014 2:03 pm

Looks like Inspiration Manifistation didn't do so hot, only got 385,000 viewers, lowest rated of the season. Poor Spike N Rares. :cry:

Here's hoping the Equestria Games give the lil guy more love/viewers
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Postby Grue (?) » Sun May 04, 2014 4:49 pm

Damn, maybe MLP needed LPS back up after all. After it got replaced with the shitty Sabrina cartoon, ratings dropped like a rock.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun May 04, 2014 5:15 pm

Doesn't it usually work the other way around? I thought TV networks usually put their best shows in front of shows that they're trying to get off the ground, in hopes that viewers will leave it on the channel due to :effort:.
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Sun May 04, 2014 6:36 pm

Oh brother... it's this simple: low-key Spike episode = low ratings.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Sun May 04, 2014 11:31 pm

Fizzbuzz wrote:Doesn't it usually work the other way around? I thought TV networks usually put their best shows in front of shows that they're trying to get off the ground, in hopes that viewers will leave it on the channel due to :effort:.


Yeah, that's what the networks do, because they assume people are too lazy to change the channel. :v: Though perhaps having LPS after did help if people wanted to watch both shows. As it is, perhaps they figure "I only want to watch MLP now, I can just watch that through other media."
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Postby Bremen (?) » Sun May 04, 2014 11:49 pm

It seems like a very precipitous drop, could there have been a strong competitor on another channel?
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Sun May 04, 2014 11:58 pm

Pony ratings have baffled me with how much they fluctuate. Outside premiers and finales, they don't really advertise episodes. They'll advertise the show, but it's usually a montage commercial, and rarely specific (like the Weird Al one). I wouldn't really think the synopsis of the show would have that big an impact.
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Postby Frith (?) » Mon May 05, 2014 12:20 am

Bremen wrote:It seems like a very precipitous drop, could there have been a strong competitor on another channel?

That's only explanation I can think of. 385k viewers is really weak result for MLP so I don't think that the synopsis of the episode was the reason why the episode didn't do well in ratings.
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Postby Wylie (?) » Mon May 05, 2014 4:52 am

Could've been a lot of folks on spring break- it was the week after Easter, after all.

And at this level of ratings points, just a few people not filling out their Nielsen books (or whatever you do these days when you're a Nielsen family) makes a good bit of difference.
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Postby Pocket (?) » Mon May 05, 2014 7:46 pm

Don't they just directly track your cable box's activity, these days? At least for cable-only channels.
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Postby Octavia (?) » Mon May 05, 2014 7:53 pm

Pocket wrote:Don't they just directly track your cable box's activity, these days? At least for cable-only channels.

There's no proof that there's anybody actually watching with cable boxes. Lots of people just turn the cable box on and leave it all day. Nielsen families need to log in with a code for whomever's watching and whenever they're watching.
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Mon May 05, 2014 8:00 pm

Nielsen is an outdated/flawed system IMO, they needa count Everyone that watches a show, or heck go by Twittet posts, would probably be more accurate.
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Postby Octavia (?) » Mon May 05, 2014 8:03 pm

I agree that Nielsen is outdated and flawed, but just counting the number of cable boxes turned on isn't a very good indicator either. :pinkieshrug:
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Mon May 05, 2014 8:04 pm

Nielsen ratings are an attempt to count everyone that watches a show at a certain time. Remember, the purpose of these ratings is to determine how many people are watching a show on TV, so that advertising prices may be decided. Counting by the number of tweets about a show would be useless for that measure.
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Postby ilcane87 (?) » Wed May 07, 2014 5:50 pm

This basically confirms that Larson is back for S5:

https://twitter.com/MMeghanMcCarthy/sta ... 5658450944
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Wed May 07, 2014 5:53 pm

ilcane87 wrote:This basically confirms that Larson is back for S5:

https://twitter.com/MMeghanMcCarthy/sta ... 5658450944


Ahhhhh goodie!

Help me, Larson. You're my only hope ( :twasnothin: )
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Postby fenster (?) » Wed May 07, 2014 7:10 pm

Fizzbuzz wrote:Nielsen ratings are an attempt to count everyone that watches a show at a certain time. Remember, the purpose of these ratings is to determine how many people are watching a show on TV, so that advertising prices may be decided. Counting by the number of tweets about a show would be useless for that measure.


Except for the part that, you know, it's a small inclusive sample that is under study. Counting tweets sucks, but at least actually can include everyone with a popular general service program rather than something specific like Nielson Ratings. Not to mention, as pointed out already, it completely ignores online/mobile spaces which are hugely important. Pretty much the only good thing about Nielson Ratings is how it tracks demographics, which IS really handy, but isn't really important to our interests nor useful in tracking the pure raw numbers a show may get.
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Postby PictishBeast (?) » Wed May 07, 2014 8:06 pm

In the U.S., Nielsen uses a sampling base of about 20,000 TV households (or "Nielsen families"). Assuming those 20,000 are fairly and evenly distributed, that's way, way more data than Nielsen needs to draw statistically significant conclusions.

As far as I know there are about 120,000,000 TV households in the U.S. Using a sample size calculator you can determine that for a population of 120,000,000 you only need 384 respondents to achieve a 95% confidence level in your results with a standard +/- 5% margin of error. Not 384,000. 384.

Now you can absolutely argue whether Nielsen's sample of 20,000 is adequately randomized. I don't have any data on whether it is or not, but I'd imagine they have their own Nate Silvers in the company who study that. But fans never seem to focus on that, it's always "nobody I know has a Nielsen meter, therefore it was a mistake to cancel Firefly."

It's like, math and shit. You'd think geeks would be all over it. :pinkieshrug:

fenster wrote:Not to mention, as pointed out already, it completely ignores online/mobile spaces which are hugely important.


This is true but Nielsen is less concerned with figuring out the total viewership of the show and more concerned with figuring out the viewership of the ads in the show (since that's where most of the money is coming in to the network so that they can continue to produce new episodes).

Digital episodes of a TV show are sold separately and can be measured directly by # of impressions or # of plays using server data. There's no need to rely on indirect statistical sampling like Nielsen and there's not really much of a point in lumping the two numbers together since they're essentially two different products with two different revenue streams.
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Postby Wylie (?) » Wed May 07, 2014 8:34 pm

My point was that with these relatively small viewer numbers (under 7 figures), you get rather noisy results. If those numbers are correct, each Nielsen family represents about 6000 households. So if a few Nielsen families take off for the weekend, you end up with smaller viewer numbers across the board, which affects shows with smaller viewerships more.

Statistics are weird and counterintuitive and they lie a lot.
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Wed May 07, 2014 9:29 pm

AppleCobbler44 wrote:
Ahhhhh goodie!

Help me, Larson. You're my only hope ( :twasnothin: )


Please stop that. :-/

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Also writers good at doing AJ &/or the Apple family, :flirt:


Personally I think Larson is best with Twilight or Spike, but hey, I'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if he does do an AJ ep.

M.A. Larson would totally rock at a Big Mac Episode though I bet!!!
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Wed May 07, 2014 9:56 pm

S5 has been very good for the Hat pony.
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Postby Space Ghost (?) » Wed May 07, 2014 9:57 pm

The Doctor wrote:S5 has been very good for the Hat pony.


Please tell me the winning lottery numbers. :-I
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Postby Octavia (?) » Wed May 07, 2014 10:53 pm

PictishBeast wrote:It's like, math and shit.

This is what I say when someone asks me to explain what my boyfriend does for a living. :-I
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Postby PictishBeast (?) » Wed May 07, 2014 11:14 pm

Octavia wrote:This is what I say when someone asks me to explain what my boyfriend does for a living. :-I


That's what I say when I wander into the "help me with my homework" threads on these forums.

"Hi ho maybe I can help somebody with their homew--"
oh god what language is that
it's just numbers, and those symbols, I don't even know what you call those symbols
maybe if I exit the thread slowly no one will notice I was here
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Thu May 08, 2014 12:44 am

Wylie wrote:My point was that with these relatively small viewer numbers (under 7 figures), you get rather noisy results. If those numbers are correct, each Nielsen family represents about 6000 households. So if a few Nielsen families take off for the weekend, you end up with smaller viewer numbers across the board, which affects shows with smaller viewerships more.

Statistics are weird and counterintuitive and they lie a lot.


The counterpoint is that a few extra families may not take off for the weekend.

With a sample size of 20,000, you're taking out most of the noise. Really the only risk I would see with Nielsen families is under reporting being a thing, but again, I imagine they have a fairly decent idea of that as well.
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Postby fenster (?) » Thu May 08, 2014 1:39 pm

PictishBeast wrote:
It's like, math and shit. You'd think geeks would be all over it. :pinkieshrug:



My point wasn't focusing on the small aspect, which you are right the sample size is mathematically enough, but it's the inclusion part that's basically the bane of any research or polling anywhere. No one can be sure what demographics or areas were chosen (unless this is told to each station that requests information? not exactly clear) and always leaves potential to leave out certain audiences because of this. Normally, just is just how statistics works because you can only study what is in front of you, the literal point being "Well lets take a cut of the population since we statstically don't need a large size". But the point I was comparing to was to Twitter/online spaces which not only has a much bigger sample pool to draw from but also isn't quite as likely to select w/r/t area demographics or the like. Basically, it's at the bottom survey system that you posted:

How many people are there in the group your sample represents?...This is not a problem. The mathematics of probability proves the size of the population is irrelevant unless the size of the sample exceeds a few percent of the total population you are examining. This means that a sample of 500 people is equally useful in examining the opinions of a state of 15,000,000 as it would a city of 100,000.


The confidence interval calculations assume you have a genuine random sample of the relevant population. If your sample is not truly random, you cannot rely on the intervals. Non-random samples usually result from some flaw in the sampling procedure. An example of such a flaw is to only call people during the day and miss almost everyone who works. For most purposes, the non-working population cannot be assumed to accurately represent the entire (working and non-working) population.


My point being that it's (arguably) easier to dismiss flaws when taking samples from internet bases now than TV ones that have the base selected since it's easier to avoid situations like the above thanks to Twitter/mobile/online usage being so prevalent that it has members from all/most demographics. Still puts kids <12 at a weird spot though.

The other half of the argument here is the slow decline of TV relevance. In my area, which I know is anecdotal since I'm in college, almost everyone around me has a Twitter but not even half of them watch TV anymore. This is what prompted the conversation, because there is potentially a flaw in the TV base or how the American Population base relates to TVs, which would make these ratings not as reliable depending on who exactly (Hasbro in our case) is being targeted, which is what we mean by "Outdated".

It has its uses as I pointed out, and you can make further arguments about how sample sizes/statistics work or how they would be the same for online spaces too. I'm just making the point that there IS room to look at data from mobile/internet and that looking into data from there is the future while TV data is slowly becoming more and more irrelevant.

PictishBeast wrote:
This is true but Nielsen is less concerned with figuring out the total viewership of the show and more concerned with figuring out the viewership of the ads in the show (since that's where most of the money is coming in to the network so that they can continue to produce new episodes).

Digital episodes of a TV show are sold separately and can be measured directly by # of impressions or # of plays using server data. There's no need to rely on indirect statistical sampling like Nielsen and there's not really much of a point in lumping the two numbers together since they're essentially two different products with two different revenue streams.


This is basically what I meant with that next sentence from the posted quote; to us viewers, we only care about the raw number of plays versus the Companies who want to track demographics and ads therein. There is a chance you can do both forms of tracking with Digital episodes, but that'd require a different system in place.

Wylie wrote:
Statistics are weird and counterintuitive and they lie a lot.


While I agree with this sentence, the example you bring up is kind of silly. Are families really traveling out much in this economy? :v:
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Postby PictishBeast (?) » Thu May 08, 2014 1:51 pm

Regarding Twitter, it looks like Nielsen is already taking it into account to some degree: "Nielsen Confirms Twitter Buzz Aligns to Actual TV Ratings"

In a nutshell, the study showed that a swell in Twitter chatter about a show correlated to a smaller swell in TV ratings. The bump was more noticeable in younger audiences (ages 18 to 34) and less pronounced for more mature TV viewers (ages 35 to 49).

For the younger group, an 8.5 percent rise in Twitter chatter about season premiers meant a one percent increase in ratings. For the older group, a 14 percent increase on Twitter meant a one percent ratings bump.


edit: Here's a chart I found somewhere else

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Postby fenster (?) » Thu May 08, 2014 3:13 pm

On the one hand, it's cool that Breaking Bad gets top spots outside the TV ratings. On the other hand, Grey's Anatomy and Glee top rankings on Twitter? :rainbert:

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Postby PictishBeast (?) » Thu May 08, 2014 3:23 pm

fenster wrote:On the one hand, it's cool that Breaking Bad gets top spots outside the TV ratings. On the other hand, Grey's Anatomy and Glee top rankings on Twitter? :rainbert:


I dunno, I believe it. I don't recognize half the stuff that shows up on Twitter. Here's the Trending Topics in the U.S. right now. No clue. :pinkieshrug:
  • #AskWilsh
  • #FoodComedians
  • Damn Taylor
  • Jay Berwanger
  • #JohnnyFootball
  • #Authority2014

(also the first season of Glee was pretty great)
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Fri May 09, 2014 4:30 pm

So EqGames got 413,000 viewers

It drew just 413,000 viewers in its first run at 10:30am ET and an additional 264,000 two hours later. Sunday’s encore did draw 393,000 and placed third. Counting the first-run only, it drags the second half average viewership below the first half. Even with the dips from the last two weeks, the second half of Season Four is still 21.2% ahead of Season Three in terms of average viewership.


Interested to see the finale's numbers. Will it break Breaking Bad? :smirk:
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Postby Chaos Sonic (?) » Fri May 09, 2014 9:32 pm

No.
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Postby Pocket (?) » Fri May 09, 2014 9:56 pm

PictishBeast wrote:As far as I know there are about 120,000,000 TV households in the U.S. Using a sample size calculator you can determine that for a population of 120,000,000 you only need 384 respondents to achieve a 95% confidence level in your results with a standard +/- 5% margin of error. Not 384,000. 384.

See, that's what I thought too, but then I wondered if it was different because of how much data is getting measured. We're not just asking random passerby who they're going to vote for in an election between two people; we're trying to gauge the entire viewing habits of every household. On the other hand, that basically just comes down to a series of binary questions too. Did they watch this show? Yes or no. Repeat until finished. It doesn't matter to anyone what shows were watched by the exact same people, as far as I know.
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Postby Mr. Big (?) » Mon May 12, 2014 11:47 pm

A tweet from Meghan

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Looks like Season 5 production began late 2013, around the time season 4 started airing.
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Postby PictishBeast (?) » Mon May 12, 2014 11:55 pm

San Diego Comic-Con is coming up in about 2 months. I wonder if they'll have anything to show?

I kind of doubt it, given the timetable. If they do, probably the only thing they could show an audience would be Equestria Girls-related. :angry:

They might skip San Diego entirely if they don't really have anything to promote. (They skipped NYCC last fall.)
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Tue May 13, 2014 12:01 am

I'd be shocked if we didn't at least get an animatic like last year. Don't we have confirmation that recording has already been done for some episodes?
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Tue May 13, 2014 12:58 am

PictishBeast wrote:San Diego Comic-Con is coming up in about 2 months. I wonder if they'll have anything to show?

I kind of doubt it, given the timetable. If they do, probably the only thing they could show an audience would be Equestria Girls-related. :angry:

They might skip San Diego entirely if they don't really have anything to promote. (They skipped NYCC last fall.)

Given that it will have been eight months since production on S5 began by the time SDCC happens, I would be seriously surprised if they had nothing for us.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Tue May 13, 2014 1:31 am

The Doctor wrote:I'd be shocked if we didn't at least get an animatic like last year. Don't we have confirmation that recording has already been done for some episodes?


I'm not sure about a recording, but even if the season doesn't start until 2015, I think the chances of not seeing an animatic are very slim. They'll definitely show whatever they can. And I don't just mean something from EQG 2, though that might also be present.
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Postby Mr. Big (?) » Tue May 13, 2014 1:34 am

Yeah, Chantal Strand said she recorded some voices for the season.
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Postby Frith (?) » Fri May 16, 2014 4:46 pm

Twilight's Kingdom didn't quite reach 800k ratings as I had predicted few months ago.

The first half of Twilight's Kingdom drew 677k viewers and the second part 788k viewers. The second part is the most watched MLP episode ever.
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Fri May 16, 2014 5:59 pm

Nice! And guessing the difference between parts is people forgetting it started half an hour earlier. But yea, pony really dominated the ratings!! Nice!
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