How Pony is Formed: Production and Business Thread

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Re: How Pony is Formed: Production and Business Thread

Postby Bumble-B (?) » Fri Jan 10, 2014 4:02 pm

Uh oh! :shepspike:

StatManDan wrote:MLP’s six-week streak at the top of the Hub viewership chart came to an end this week thanks to a New Year’s Day showing of “The Polar Express.” However, “Rarity Takes Manehattan” did take second place with a total of 527,000 viewers which is just 4,000 off “Bats!” from last Saturday. “Rarity Takes Manehattan” does become the sixth most-watched episode of the series (counting the S3 and S4 premieres as one episode each). It is also the fourth successive week that the show cracked the 500K mark in terms of viewership.

Meanwhile, “Blythe’s Big Idea” drew 249,000 on Saturday (down 17.3% from last week) which was good for 25th place this week. The downside was that it was again behind the Saturday and Sunday repeats of “Alligators and Handbags” (both showings incidentally did better than its first-run last week) and 12 reruns of MLP (including 6 of 7 repeats of Season 4 episodes on New Year’s Day). The one-hour drop off from “Rarity Takes Manehattan” to “Blythe’s Big Idea” was a staggering 53%. It goes without saying that the Season 2 viewership for LPS is well off the pace set by the first season. This is the fourth successive week in which the LPS episode that aired the previous Saturday had done better than the first-run LPS episode.


:excellent: Looks like the Magic of Friendship wasn't able to sav-

Bla Bla Bla you know how it goes :roll:

Well, eventually this streak was going to drop off at some point because All Good Things Come to An End, plus the holidays. We'll see, I guess how it does starting with Pinkie Apple Pie and onwards :ponder:

Edit: Oh, and CURSE YOU, Santa! :applejargh: How dare you overtake Ponies with the Polar Express after I got a towel for Christmas while my sisters got a Walkman and jewelry :grumpydash:
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Fri Jan 10, 2014 4:28 pm

Let it forever be known that Creepy Glasses Kid > Rarity. :gotcha:

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:rariwhat: In all honesty, I have a long list of Christmas classics I like to watch, but I do not get the appeal of The Polar Express. I just don't think it's that good at all.
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Postby Discord (?) » Fri Jan 10, 2014 4:40 pm

I imagine it was just a case of the Hub marketing and hyping people to watch "The Polar Express" more than new pony. It's not a generally well-regarded movie, but that may have worked in its favour if people haven't seen it.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Fri Jan 10, 2014 8:58 pm

The Doctor wrote:Let it forever be known that Creepy Glasses Kid > Rarity. :gotcha:

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Now that's a good reason to use this emote. :cry:
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Postby Mr. Big (?) » Tue Jan 14, 2014 8:56 pm

Not specifically Pony, but the Hub network got a new senior vice president.
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Wed Jan 15, 2014 6:02 am

Mr. Big wrote:Not specifically Pony, but the Hub network got a new senior vice president.

I don't mean any disrespect, but he could play a good Dracula in about ten years.
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Wed Jan 15, 2014 6:10 am

SlateSlabrock wrote:I don't mean any disrespect, but he could play a good Dracula in about ten years.



No need to, because by ten years, the show would have already been sucked dry :rimshot: :shepspike:

... Does that work? Like "milking it dry"? Cuz that's what I meant but I thought you could suck something like blood dry and not just milk... :cricket noise:
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Postby Frith (?) » Fri Jan 17, 2014 4:25 am

Last week's ratings are in and Pinkie Apple Pie was the most watched Hub programme with 499K viewers. You can find more information from here.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Fri Jan 17, 2014 4:35 am

Now here's something I found particularly interesting.
Most Watched MLP Episodes:
1. Princess Twilight Sparkle (721,000 for both parts)
2. Power Ponies (683,000)
3. The Crystal Empire (601,000 for both parts)
4. Flight to the Finish (568,000)
5. Bats! (531,000)
6. Rarity Takes Manehattan (527,000)
7. Wonderbolts Academy (505,000)
8. Pinkie Apple Pie (499,000)
9. One Bad Apple (494,000)
10. A Canterlot Wedding (479,000 for both parts)

Of these top 10 episodes, six are from S4, three from S3, and one from S2. I'm amazed that "mundane" episodes from S4 are so strongly beating out the most spectacular episodes from past seasons.
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Fri Jan 17, 2014 4:37 am

People are hyped to have new pony, that 10 month wait made em rush back to the TV in even greater numbers then before. :gotcha:
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Fri Jan 17, 2014 4:46 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:Now here's something I found particularly interesting.
Of these top 10 episodes, six are from S4, three from S3, and one from S2. I'm amazed that "mundane" episodes from S4 are so strongly beating out the most spectacular episodes from past seasons.


Maybe most people are... Just Average :shepspike:

But really for FiM, there's a lot of other factors. Premieres are obviously a thing and in the case of Power ponies, that was marketed rather highly and "Look, it's superheroes! That's like, popular because every big studios is making it and there's many cartoons!" As for the others like Bats!, FttF, Pinkie Apple Pie, etc., there's a rising number of people getting the Hub because FiM is just getting more and more popular. So there, i guess.
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Postby The Outlander (?) » Fri Jan 17, 2014 5:19 am

Wow, that's insane. I remember when the viewership totals came in for ACW and it was far and away the most successful showing of anything the Hub had ever done, and now every episode of Season 4 is pulling bigger numbers than that. :starity:
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Postby Homeswirl (?) » Fri Jan 17, 2014 11:59 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:Of these top 10 episodes, six are from S4, three from S3, and one from S2. I'm amazed that "mundane" episodes from S4 are so strongly beating out the most spectacular episodes from past seasons.

Why is that amazing? When watching the initial airing, the general audience has no clue how "mundane" or exciting the episodes are going to be. It seems obvious that the baseline audience has grown steadily and significantly, and the variation of people changing the channel is likely trivial compared to the growth of that baseline.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Fri Jan 17, 2014 12:14 pm

Homeswirl wrote:Why is that amazing? When watching the initial airing, the general audience has no clue how "mundane" or exciting the episodes are going to be. It seems obvious that the baseline audience has grown steadily and significantly, and the variation of people changing the channel is likely trivial compared to the growth of that baseline.

That's exactly it. I just didn't think the regular, TV-watching audience had gotten that huge.
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Postby Lorce (?) » Fri Jan 17, 2014 6:04 pm

Homeswirl wrote:Why is that amazing? When watching the initial airing, the general audience has no clue how "mundane" or exciting the episodes are going to be. It seems obvious that the baseline audience has grown steadily and significantly, and the variation of people changing the channel is likely trivial compared to the growth of that baseline.

It is kinda amazing considering the billboard promotion and the hyping articles ACW had, which were bound to draw in some higher numbers. ^^
I'm more surprised about One Bad Apple being #9 on the list though.
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Postby Pocket (?) » Fri Jan 17, 2014 11:58 pm

I'm satisfied that the most popular regular episode of season three is "Wonderbolts Academy." :cool:
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Postby Corpy (?) » Mon Jan 20, 2014 8:57 pm

Also, The Hub is probably available/accessible than it was back when the show launched.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Mon Jan 20, 2014 10:30 pm

I wonder how much viewership of the Hub has changed between October 2010 and now. Even if more television providers have picked it up or made it available in cheaper channel packages, I imagine that the general decline of cable TV has taken a bite out of it as well.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Mon Jan 20, 2014 10:54 pm

Thought I read somewhere that for a new station they're doing pretty well for their third year.
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Postby Discord (?) » Wed Jan 22, 2014 2:57 am

So now that a 2nd EqG movie is confirmed, how does that fit into production schedules? After S3 it didn't have too big an impact since that was a half season, but it has to have a bigger impact now since S4 is a full season. Does that mean S5 (if we consider that confirmed) might have been cut into, or pushed backed? And does that mean the 2nd EqG movie will probably show up later in the year than the 1st one? :ponder:
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Wed Jan 22, 2014 3:01 am

What is EQ2 is handled by an entirely different staff (other than VAs) and animation studio?
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Postby Mr. Big (?) » Wed Jan 22, 2014 3:40 am

DHX Studio is fairly large. Even within, they could have gotten a separate team/director handling it.
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Postby drunkill (?) » Wed Jan 22, 2014 6:23 am

Well Pound Puppies is over, so they could be using staff from that to work on the project to fill in a gap.

Or Season 5 could be 13 episodes long. :evil:
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Wed Jan 22, 2014 6:52 am

Is this going to be another case of the 'Bad' Star Trek movies cuz They're the Odd Numbers? :-I (Well, the Nostalgia Critic said most of the Odd numbered Star Trek movies suck so I can't attest to if that's true or not)
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Postby Homeswirl (?) » Wed Jan 22, 2014 7:58 am

That would imply that EqG2 is going to be the good one. :ohgawd:
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Wed Jan 22, 2014 8:27 am

Homeswirl wrote:That would imply that EqG2 is going to be the good one. :ohgawd:


Equestria Girls 2: The Wrath of Brad :ohgawd:

"Let them eat static" [pulls the plug]
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Fri Jan 24, 2014 3:03 pm

Rarity might not be able to beat the creepy glasses kid, but Rainbow Dash can! You have been avenged, Rarity. :awesomedash:

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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Fri Jan 31, 2014 12:48 pm

StatManDan wrote:The return of Discord in Season Three did not provide a significant boost in viewership. “Keep Calm And Flutter On” was the 8th most-watched of the 13 Season Three episodes. Discord’s second appearance of Season Four did not provide a significant boost in viewership, either. “Three’s A Crowd is currently the third least-watched episode of Season Four. That’s 6% off last week’s “Rainbow Falls.” It is still top spot among Hub Network programming, but just the third episode not to reach a half million viewers. However, this coming week’s episode may not have such problems reaching that mark given how hard the Hub is pushing it.


Read more here: http://lps.derpynews.com/ratings-corner ... more-27550

Interestingly he doesn't give the numbers for Three's a Crowd but it is surprising how TaC, the one with DISCORD didn't get more views. I'm worried about Pinkie Pride possibly being barely over 500,000 views. I mean, I assume a lot of older fans know who Weird Al is and are dying to see him but... the kids???

And we kinda know how most older fans watch FiM :liarjack: so I guess we'll see how it does even with Pinkie Pride for those ragamuffins :-I
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Postby Frith (?) » Fri Jan 31, 2014 6:01 pm

The ratings can be found here.

Three's A Crowd drew 483 000 viewers.
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Fri Jan 31, 2014 6:20 pm

Still A solid number. :twiright:

Hope Werd AL's ep does even better though '!
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Fri Feb 07, 2014 6:29 pm

Only 459k for PPride. Disappointing, wonder if the leak had any impact (I think it was probably minimal)
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Postby drunkill (?) » Sat Feb 08, 2014 3:22 am

It's sad, given the amount of promotion The Hub ran for the episode, including a few interviews on websites/magazines.

I bet the leak did impact numbers, given a 5% drop over last week.
http://lps.derpynews.com/ratings-corner ... sunil-etc/
It’s apparent that whoever leaked “Pinkie Pride” before Saturday has some explaining to do. Given that the episode drew just 459,000 viewers on Saturday, it just might have had a significant impact on viewership. That was actually 5% lower than last Saturday’s “Three’s A Crowd.” That is the second-lowest first-run viewership this season. It’s especially disappointing given how much hype was given this episode.

Here are the updated season-to-date figures for MLP (numbers only count first-run episodes):

MLP Season 4:

Episodes as of February 7th: 12
High: 733,000 (“Princess Twilight Sparkle, Part 1″, 11/23)
Low: 397,000 (“Daring Don’t”, 12/7)
Average Viewership: 547,000
Highest Placing: 1st (ten times)
Lowest Placing: 2nd (twice)
Average Placing: 1st

Most Watched MLP Episodes:

1. Princess Twilight Sparkle (721,000 for both parts)
2. Power Ponies (683,000)
3. The Crystal Empire (601,000 for both parts)
4. Flight to the Finish (568,000)
5. Bats! (531,000)
6. Rarity Takes Manehattan (527,000)
7. Rainbow Falls (514,000)
8. Wonderbolts Academy (505,000)
9. Pinkie Apple Pie (499,000)
10. One Bad Apple (494,000)

It’s now nine weeks out of eleven where more people caught the previous week’s episode than the new one airing a half hour later.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sat Feb 08, 2014 3:48 am

Could the leak really have affected it that much? Sure, tons of us watched it, but I imagine that if the leak hadn't happened then most of us would've watched it via a stream, so we wouldn't have counted for those viewership numbers anyway. The only way I can imagine the leak having that big of an impact is if parents heard about it and love the show enough themselves and are tech-savvy enough to hunt down an upload of it on Dailymotion or wherever. Sites like that aren't exactly the domain of little kids, after all.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Sat Feb 08, 2014 6:16 am

Yeah, I agree with that. It seems more likely that those numbers are made up of children watching it on TV, because the fandom is more likely to watch the show via downloads. I mean how many of us here have the Hub available? I feel like some of the bigger episodes are effected by the fandom (like premiers and finales), but as for an average weekend episode, I feel most will simply watch a stream or Youtube/iTunes anyway. :pinkieshrug:
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Postby Perpetual Lurker (?) » Sat Feb 08, 2014 7:38 am

Honestly, most shows display a slow-but-steady ratings dropoff over the season, until it spikes again for the finale. The exception is super-hyped and over-advertised episodes, and while Pinkie Pride was advertised and hyped, it wasn't done so in any way that directly appeals to the show's primary demographic and ratings driver. Power Ponies, on the other hand, is something that was similarly advertised, except that it's premise and appeal was immediately clear, which resulted in its higher ratings.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Sun Feb 09, 2014 11:57 pm

HUB showing family movies every week. Happy Feet, Polar Express, Mrs. Doubtifre, etc.

This week.

"Clue"

Innuendo and murder for the kiddies. And "Where are they now" interviews with the weapons of the movie (not a joke).

:ohboy: Rarity, what does Ms. Scarlett mean when she says she's part of the oldest profession?

:ohrarity: I think we should turn this off...

:gah: Sis, what's a red herring?

:bluh: Communists...

:nngh: Why do they want to cut the guys head off?

:v: It's the only way to be sure, Squirt.

:-D A Singing Telegram girl. I can do that!

:BANG:

:serious: I'll just show myself out now.
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Postby ilcane87 (?) » Mon Feb 10, 2014 7:58 pm

So, there was another of those Earnings Calls today, here are the relevant tidbits:
MY LITTLE PONY reached a record revenue level.

Behind a successful global entertainment, licensing and retail strategy which re-launched the brand in 2010, MY LITTLE PONY has grown to represent approximately $650 million at retail across the blueprint. In 2013, we grew both the core MY LITTLE PONY products as well as successfully launched MY LITTLE PONY EQUESTRIA GIRLS. According to NPD, for the week of Christmas, December 22nd to December 28th, Hasbro's EQUESTRIA GIRLS was the number one selling Fashion Themed Doll in the United States, taking the top spot from veteran players in this toy category.

The combination of strong consumer insights, global digital content and engaging storytelling, innovative products and comprehensive retail execution, enabled MY LITTLE PONY to post three years of revenue growth, expand its geographic and demographic reach and to be well positioned entering 2014.

Hasbro shows continue to be among the highest rated shows in the majority of markets where they air. This branded content is helping drive our emerging markets success, where TRANSFORMERS and MY LITTLE PONY are consistently top rated programs in these markets.
And here's the full transcript:
http://www.morningstar.com/earnings/ear ... S&pindex=1


Not much in terms of news, though in 4-6 days the NYC Toy Fair will take place, there's going to be an Investor Update Conference, and we're probably going to learn more about future toylines, including possible related spoilers on unaired content.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Mon Feb 10, 2014 8:13 pm

ilcane87 wrote:So, there was another of those Earnings Calls today, here are the relevant tidbits:
And here's the full transcript:
http://www.morningstar.com/earnings/ear ... S&pindex=1


Not much in terms of news, though in 4-6 days the NYC Toy Fair will take place, there's going to be an Update Investor Conference, and we're probably going to learn more about future toylines, including possible related spoilers on unaired content.


According to NPD, for the week of Christmas, December 22nd to December 28th, Hasbro's EQUESTRIA GIRLS was the number one selling Fashion Themed Doll in the United States, taking the top spot from veteran players in this toy category.


Wow. Good for them. That certainly isn't coming from some unexpected, expanded fanbase but the target demographic.
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Mon Feb 10, 2014 9:10 pm

Glad to see pony doing well! And can't wait for more toy fair news!
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Postby Pocket (?) » Wed Feb 12, 2014 7:58 am

The Doctor wrote:HUB showing family movies every week. Happy Feet, Polar Express, Mrs. Doubtifre, etc.

This week.

"Clue"

Innuendo and murder for the kiddies.

They're just showing that because it's still the only live-action Hasbro movie that's only rated PG.

Come to think of it, that was basically the only live-action movie based on a Hasbro property before Bayformers came along, I think. And what ever happened to that Candy Land movie that Adam Sandler was working on? Did he give up when he realized that Wreck-It Ralph had already used all his best material? Singing "Oh-ree-oh, oREEEE-oh" to that tune was an actual inside joke in our house before that movie came out. Guess we weren't the only ones.
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