How Pony is Formed: Production and Business Thread

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Re: How Pony is Formed: Production and Business Thread

Postby Bumble-B (?) » Wed Jun 17, 2015 5:00 pm

Well, just like Pinkie Pride, this week's Slice of Life, this big event that's been hyped over two weeks received!...

459,000 views :pcstare:

Yeah, for the 100th episode that would occasionally bombard me with ads on Facebook or on other pony sites, 459K was even lower than the previous episode.

There's been a lot of blaming going around like blaming Discovery Network for not promoting enough (I dunno, I got more promo from them on this ep than before methinks), blaming the young girls audience for not being as receptive to the fan-loved characters (...?), it being the summer so less people indoors to watch MLP, and the hiatuses, which probably of all theories, makes sense. Although, that did bring up discussions whether there should be breaks at all because as we've seen with a handful of Disney cartoons and Pony eps this season, as well as a few examples in the older seasons, taking breaks do seem to hurt the viewership.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Wed Jun 17, 2015 5:17 pm

Personally, I think it was more to do with the break than anything else...it got pretty good promotion. Anyway, now that the break's over, I think the figures will start to increase again.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Wed Jun 17, 2015 5:39 pm

Yes, I think it was the two prior weeks without any new ponies that hurt it. It didn't help that the first of the past two ponyless weeks was spent showing a bunch of EqG stuff, and then just before last week's episode, Discovery Family decided to show EqG1 again. As such I wouldn't be too surprised if people tuned in prior to the episode, saw that EqG was on, and didn't bother looking ahead in the schedule (Discovery Family is a premium cable network, after all, so folks are gonna have the TV schedules right there) to see if they were actually gonna show any horse cartoons that day.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Wed Jun 17, 2015 6:36 pm

I don't know. Unlike with the last break, this break was combined with MASSIVE amounts of advertising on the network.
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Wed Jun 17, 2015 7:46 pm

The breaks didn't help, but I wonder if there's some truth to the conventional wisdom that summer is the dead season when everyone's outside/away from home and thus not watching TV. Last year apparently had horrible summer ratings across the board.

The Doctor wrote:I don't know. Unlike with the last break, this break was combined with MASSIVE amounts of advertising on the network.

...for people to see while they watch My Dog's Funny Animal Friends. :-P
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Wed Jun 17, 2015 7:51 pm

Well, that too, but they did a lot of TV spots just for this episode, and it was for the specific episode. Not the S5 premiere ad run ad nausea.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Wed Jun 17, 2015 10:06 pm

It was probably the short break that was the reason it didn't do very hot. If they wanted it to go much higher, they should have saved the break an episode or two before the 100th.
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Wed Jun 24, 2015 1:08 am

... Apparently it got worse

260,000 viewers for Princess Spike :pcstare:

Lowest of the season so far...

Edit: To be fair, given that Hasbro makes its dough off toys, this isn't THE END OF FIM :flail: like what some people are saying. Yeah the ratings are low but Hasbro probably isn't panicking
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Postby InsertAuthorHere (?) » Wed Jun 24, 2015 1:17 am

The episode basically got zero advertising outside of the Discovery Family ad, and when 260,000 viewers is still higher than any of your other shows, that's just sad. No preview clips were released ahead of time to entice viewers, and many of the fans that follow what episodes are coming may have decided to skip based on the track record for Spike episodes.

The episode was really bad in an insulting way, but that's something gleamed in hindsight and wouldn't contribute to the episode's ratings. Any of the other factors would have been damage enough.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Wed Jun 24, 2015 1:41 am

AppleCobbler44 wrote:... Apparently it got worse

260,000 viewers for Princess Spike :pcstare:

Lowest of the season so far...

Edit: To be fair, given that Hasbro makes its dough off toys, this isn't THE END OF FIM :flail: like what some people are saying. Yeah the ratings are low but Hasbro probably isn't panicking
:pinkieshrug:


Even still, it's kind of more dependent on toy sales if anything.
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Wed Jun 24, 2015 3:58 am

It's also, like, Summer, aka the worst part of the year for airing TV shows which is why mainstream networks always run terrible summer gameshows and stuff.

People are on vacation/going to the pool/at summer camp, stuff like that.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Wed Jun 24, 2015 4:25 am

Dexanth wrote:It's also, like, Summer, aka the worst part of the year for airing TV shows which is why mainstream networks always run terrible summer gameshows and stuff.

People are on vacation/going to the pool/at summer camp, stuff like that.


Right, that too. It's why I find it weird this season would start so late. That would mean come fall, when TV shows usually do air, it'll just be reruns by then, and estimating that it finishes just before fall, I don't think Season 6 will come sooner than early 2016, and risks repeating the same instance of running into the summer if they don't start earlier.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Wed Jun 24, 2015 6:06 am

Yeah, I think they might have done better if they waited until fall...I'm personally expecting S6 to come out in January.
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Postby MurdER_weapOn '78 (?) » Wed Jun 24, 2015 9:47 am

Dexanth wrote:It's also, like, Summer, aka the worst part of the year for airing TV shows which is why mainstream networks always run terrible summer gameshows and stuff.

People are on vacation/going to the pool/at summer camp, stuff like that.


If that's the case, could a lengthy Summer hiatus be about to come onto the horizon? :saddershy:
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Postby Lorce (?) » Wed Jun 24, 2015 10:47 am

MurdER_weapOn '78 wrote:
If that's the case, could a lengthy Summer hiatus be about to come onto the horizon? :saddershy:

Well, i brought this up before, but now that i thought about it, the timing for it might already be too late. The perfect time to do this would probably be the season half point with Ep13, but in that case they should not have had those breaks and aired it by now to at least start the hiatus with July. :pinkieshrug:
Though i wonder how much power Hasbro actually still has over airdates of their shows. Think someone here said they kept 40% of the shares, so they should still have some influence in which case i guess they're fine with this schedule. But if not, i wonder if they might consider switching networks for S6 and future stuff of other shows (barring any possible long-term exclusivity contracts). ^^
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Wed Jun 24, 2015 10:53 am

Are there any other shows similar to FiM that are airing new episodes right now? Perhaps we should look at them and see how they're doing in the ratings.
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Wed Jun 24, 2015 11:42 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:Are there any other shows similar to FiM that are airing new episodes right now? Perhaps we should look at them and see how they're doing in the ratings.


Star Vs The Forces of Evil is airing new eps in June. First ep last week got 700,000. This week 500,000. I remember Wander Over Yonder getting 300-500,000 views during their 2014 Summer run (either June or July).

The only show that seems to be doing pretty damn well during the summer is Steven Universe on CartoonNetwork. It usually gets 1.5 million an episode but the latest ep this month that recently aired this/last week got nearly 2 million views.

So... If you're not CN, you probably aren't doing so hot :v:

Edit: Granted... I didn't mention about how well their performance were out of summer. WOY (on Disney XD) did better, from 400-700,000. Star Vs pre-Summer got 700-800,000. Steven Universe 1.5-2+ million
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Wed Jun 24, 2015 11:18 pm

ROBOT B9 wrote:Yeah, I think they might have done better if they waited until fall...I'm personally expecting S6 to come out in January.

I feel like January is when more shows come out of hiatus than new shows come out. Personally I would expect March, as it's when all those January shows are ending. But then again, MLP isn't a big TV show in that sense like it's on Fox or something, so I don't really know. :pinkieshrug:
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Thu Jun 25, 2015 5:55 am

March would probably be fine as well...it depends when this season ends, then we can probably estimate when S6 comes out.
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Wed Jul 01, 2015 3:08 am

So it looks like the ratings are finally improving:

369,000

It's not that big of an improvement though.
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Wed Jul 01, 2015 4:13 am

I'm sorry, but why are we hyperanalyzing views from week to week
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Wed Jul 01, 2015 4:23 am

Wayoshi wrote:I'm sorry, but why are we hyperanalyzing views from week to week


I dunno, I just like discussions and speculation :pinkieshrug:

I personally don't think these ratings have any significant effect over the show but it is still interesting to discuss why views were higher or lower.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Wed Jul 01, 2015 1:00 pm

Wayoshi wrote:I'm sorry, but why are we hyperanalyzing views from week to week

:pinkieshrug: Because it's actually interesting to know the views of episodes to see their performance? This is the business thread after all. I mean, I personally may not be saying anything, but I think it's pretty interesting. Besides, it's not doing harm other than a post, and it certainly isn't hyperanalyzing.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Wed Jul 01, 2015 1:15 pm

Wayoshi wrote:I'm sorry, but why are we hyperanalyzing views from week to week

S5's current situation is worth looking at in greater detail, considering how it's being run during the summer and how Discovery Family is putting less effort into it than what FiM got in past seasons.
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Wed Jul 01, 2015 6:43 pm

There are many variables in fluctuations week to week, it is hard to pick out the effect DF has had.
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 3:36 am

And it went down again:

283,000 for Amending Fences

Not the lowest (260,000) though. DerpyNews gave a likely reason (July 4th) and also talked about the possible schedule/release date for Season 6 this year, possibly October at the earliest. It would also coincide with EqG3

http://mlp.derpynews.com/ratings-report ... ng-fences/
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 4:35 pm

You know what makes the most sense? Continuing S5 (accidentally dubbed as S6 in the tweet) right after EqG3.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 4:39 pm

Wait, what? I thought they said it was going to be S6. They're actually taking a break from the season?! :psygum:
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 4:41 pm

To assume that Hasbro flubbed the tweet, didn't realize the mistake, and continued to not realize and correct the mistake into the next day (the tweet is still up, after all) seems to make very little sense to me.
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 4:42 pm

Wayoshi wrote:You know what makes the most sense? Continuing S5 (accidentally dubbed as S6 in the tweet) right after EqG3.

If they haven't even announced a break in season 5 yet, I don't see why they'd announce that season 6 is coming this year.
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Postby Lorce (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 5:59 pm

Welp :-I
Twitter wrote:Correction! Second half of #MyLittlePony #FriendshipisMagic season 5 is coming later this year. #HasbroSDCC Forgive us, we got nervouscited
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 6:07 pm

Damn it all. So, are they running throughout the year or are they taking a break or...this really pisses me off for some reason. :applejargh:
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 6:52 pm

It's summer. Saturday late morning, many people are in the midst of day trips, never mind summer weekend getaways. As this thread has been tracking, ratings starting with 509 are not so good, relatively. It makes sense to stop now and return with EqG3 as a "hey ponies are back" type of event. I bet we get a nice fresh commercial multiple times during EqG3 showing snippets of future episodes to start on October 3.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 6:55 pm

That's about what I was thinking. They realized that summer isn't a good time to be airing a children's TV show and they also realized that the people at Discovery Family who do the ads have been seriously slacking off.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 7:23 pm

Well, when you put it that way...it DOES make a lot of sense. I guess it'll be fine as long as the wait isn't too long.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 8:32 pm

Lorce wrote:Welp :-I

:gotcha: I bet they wanted to start the hype train so they could personally crash it.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 8:58 pm

Seriously, if I was there at Comic Con, I'd personally ask them what the hell they were thinking. Just...stupid! :facehoof:
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Postby Mr. Big (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 9:01 pm

I'm going to guess the second half will be sometime in October-ish, with a break lasting 3 months at most.
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Postby Bremen (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 9:25 pm

Bakertoons wrote:I'm going to guess the second half will be sometime in October-ish, with a break lasting 3 months at most.


This is my guess, with it starting no more than a month after EqG3.
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Postby Illuminations (?) » Thu Jul 09, 2015 10:04 pm

I'm not particularly happy with the sudden mini-hiatus to come about during the middle of a season but if Hasbro sticks to their word than this waiting-game will be less painful than was the nearly year-long hiatus leading up the start of Season 5. I can wait 2-3 months instead of 11 or 12 months.

What was Hasbro thinking with airing Season 5 during the summer months? I can't help but think that the transition from the HUB to Discovery Family, when combined with the added on responsibilities of making the EQ Movies, really hurt the way in which Hasbro aired its MLP seasons. With the new movie expected to be out in the near future, that is now the main priority to get out of the way. And since S5 isn't immediately returning right away following the movie's release, its safe to assume that this season is not even completed yet. That begs the question: How and why did Hasbro/DHX fail to complete development for Season 5 when they had 11 months to flesh everything out?

Some blame can go to Hasbro in choosing to axe the HUB and move in with Discovery Family, but I feel that the development of Rainbow Rocks is also to blame.
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