Going Forth from the Fifth

My Little Pony 3 comments

You may have seen Equestria Daily’s Sethisto’s “State of the Fandom” piece back on December 2nd. This will be partially a response to that as well as a look into my own Magic 8 Crystal ball.

Challenge:  There is a charge that the fandom is in decline and one could point to the ratings being off from Season Four. Of course, things that don’t help include the 11-month hiatus, a new name for the channel, the new time slot (an hour later than in Season Four), episodes during the summer and major holidays, and said channel not as hip with their advertising as they were when they were the Hub. It’s still by a distance Discovery Family’s top show. The channel’s real struggle lies in having a sustainable hit to compliment MLP which has not come from either Littlest Pet Shop or Transformers: Rescue Bots (both are ironically set to join the 100-episode club in the future).

Sales of the toys have been off the last two quarters (factoring in foreign exchange) after 14+ quarters of growth. Winning streaks don’t last forever—just ask the Golden State Warriors. Still, it has been more consistent in its performance the last few years compared to Transformers whose performance is strongly correlated with whether or not there’s a movie. The Girls division at Hasbro is expected to get a massive lift when the Disney Princesses and Frozen contracts kick in the New Year. In the toy business, that’s akin to when Fox took over NFL broadcasts from CBS in 1992. We’ll likely see what’s new for MLP in 2016 starting with the February Toy Fair in New York City.

One sign that the fandom might actually be growing is the growth in attendance at conventions. Here are a few examples of that (Source:  Ponycons.com):

Convention
2014
2015
%  Change
Ponycon NYC
569
1,707
200.0%
Midwest Brony Fest
450
673
49.6%
MLP-MSP
1,000
1,022
2.2%
BronyCon
9,607
10,011
4.2%
BABSCon
2,350
2,648
12.7%
Everfree Northwest
2,500
2,767
10.7%
Nightmare Nights Dallas
1,340
1,600
19.4%
Ponyville Ciderfest
829
1,135
36.9%

The My Little Pony Fair, the one officially sponsored by Hasbro, saw record attendance as well near Chicago with over 2,200 in attendance. Equestria LA returned to over 2,000 guests. Further to a point, there are more kids and families than ever before at conventions and a more diverse set than previously. In addition, there will be new conventions in San Diego, Chicago, Nashville, and South Carolina.

It can be said that very few of us expected to get this far with this show and fandom as we are now over five years old. I’m not sure the peak was in 2013 as Sethisto has put it. It might have been during Season Four when viewership and sales were at its highest. Plus, it didn’t hurt making an cameo in a Super Bowl ad and it’s still a curiosity to some in the media. Plus, it’s still apparently a top cartoon show on Netflix (for want of actual numbers on that).

So what of the future? Fans will come and go as they do in every fandom. All that’s known of the future of this show is that there will be a sixth season, a movie on November 3rd, 2017, and a fourth Equestria Girls movie, and the comics continue in two different series. Nothing else official, especially in terms of a possible end, has been stated.

As far as the future beyond the movie, I simply hope that Hasbro realizes that they finally have the six characters to build the franchise of My Little Pony around and they have been doing that with G4. They should be part of any future generation of the franchise much like Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and Megatron are for each version of Transformers. That was what was really lacking from MLP in previous generations (though some of the ponies in name only existed in previous generations).

It is presumed that Season Six will start up in 2016 and hopefully we will not wait another 11 months (or even more) to see it. Even then it’s not the longest hiatus for a show. Fans of Gravity Falls and The Legend of Korra had to wait even longer between Seasons One and Two (or Books One and Two in the case of the latter). If this run ends after the 2017 movie, so be it. I prefer to continue to enjoy the ride which still very much has a while to go. The future is not as dark as it seems.

StatManDan

Tags: , , , , ,
  • JakRZS

    Whatever Dan. There’s might be not an official word for the show ending after the movie, but whatever its fate will be, I’m quitting after it regardless, basically for two reasons:

    1)I don’t want to see MLP becoming the new Spongebob. There might be no signs of this for now, and the S4 and the S5 are the best seasons of the show so far but it would be just a matter of time this will happen, especially with many of the veteran writers leaving or are now working on the movie;

    2)The Fandom…. or rather, the Hatedom. Honestly, I don’t know how MLP fans have the guts to define them as such. For 4 years they all they did is bashing all the things regarding the series except the first season, and all because Lauren Faust wasn’t involved anymore in those seasons…. Those people are ruining the general reputation of the whole show to the external people possibly making it overhated as much as Johnny Test is…. with the difference that JT DESERVES most of the hate, MLP DOESN’T…. and then there are problems regarding fans attacking the writers and reviewers that are turning unnecessarely negative and starting to bash everything (pratically now you and Dr. Wolf are the only mainly positive reviewers left in the fandom Dan….). Technically many of those people left the fandom, but they still planted a timebomb that will make this series explode because an heavy and unnecessary amount of hate.

    Long story short: The more time passes the more this series will lose. Once the movie will be released, I’ll quit MLP, no matter what the future will bring to it.

    • JakRZS

      Also…. shall we talk about the “Twilight Moral Torture Porn” of the S5 I’ve already pointed in your overview for the season? Not to say anything but the main responsables of that are the newcomer writers (Nick Confalone, Neal Dusedau and Noelle Benvenuti)…… and that says something about how I feel about the eventual future of the show right…? RIGHT?!

      Ah nevermind, I’ve ranted enough about this. Whatever the future will bring, whatever the fate of the show will be, I’ve already made my final decision: On November 3rd 2017 I’ll quit watching MLP, and whatever came after that day simply won’t exist for me, and I’m not intentioned to change idea.

  • Frith.dreamwidth.org

    Nice stats! Thanks!

    I don’t think the fandom is dying, I think it’s getting younger and that wet rags are having too much fun being downers. 8^) I also think that my criteria for excellence in fan-made works gets higher with all the amazing stuff I’ve seen. Right now EqD is doing a series of retrospectives on fanworks and that really drives home how vibrant an art community this is, all fed by the continuing lore of MLP:FIM. We’ve seen a lot of great artists come and go, but thus it has been for pop culture for as long as I can remember.