By now, most everyone has heard the news that CinemaQuestria, a Saturday-morning Streaming Staple, has been suddenly slapped with a cease and desist, spotlighting a sad state of affairs for the show. CinemaQuestria is just one of many private streamers of the episodes on Saturday mornings, and potentially just the first to be struck with the banhammer.
This has of course led to speculation over the biggest question: "Why?"
Why would Hasbro and Discovery Family do this now, after all this time, and from a business aspect why is it even a bad thing?
A few anons have noted a fact that has gone overlooked this season; a shocking trend that we wouldn't have expected.
Discovery Family is hemorrhaging viewers.
Thanks to the Nielsen ratings provided by this website, we can see the trend. In just 3 episodes time, MLP lost over HALF of its viewerbase for this season.
As one anon states: "Tanks for the Memories had 650'000 viewers, Appleloosa's Most Wanted had 496'000 and Make New Friends But Keep Discord had only 307'000 viewers."
It's true. The numbers are now below 307 K, the lowest ratings in literal years for the show, as the lowest-rated episode of Season 4 (Inspiration Manifestation) still brought in 385,000 viewers. "Hearts and Hooves Day" in Season 2 brought in 320,000.
What is causing this trend? Again, anons have speculation.
"I guess it might have something to do with Discovery Family being fucking horrible at advertising the show and those unnecessary hiatuses."
It is a fact that Discovery Family has been advertising the Season PREMIER episode as being a "new episode" of My Little Pony since at least the beginning of April....nearly 2 months now. The majority of actual new advertisements have been released online, but the old advertisements have not dropped off of the cable broadcast.
Whether this trend is what has triggered the corporate overreaction team to start axing the streamers or not is uncertain. Though the timing makes bystanders question the company's logic - as is done often with this show.
No matter what the trigger, the network needs to correct the trend.
Unfortunately, we must say goodbye to CinemaQuestria, and we will have to cross them off of the weekly "Let's watch some cartoons" list.
Their press release is below
To the fans and loyal viewers of CinemaQuestria and its content,
As of Tuesday, May 19th, CinemaQuestria was issued a cease and desist order from Hasbro. We were asked to stop streaming MLP:FiM and Equestria Girls content. To avoid further issues, we will not be streaming any Hasbro content on our site, including the live stream of the new MLP:FiM episodes.
At this time, we are determining our options and how we wish to proceed from here. We hope to continue providing a fantastic viewing and community experience in future, whatever that may hold. At this time, our other streams will remain unaffected. We will be continuing with our normal Saturday content which we have been streaming before and after new episodes, and invite everyone to stop by and chat with us before and during the new episode, however, any Hasbro content from our schedule has been removed. You can view our updatedSaturday schedule here: http://cinemaquestria.com/
We'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped make CQ what it is today. Your support and kindness is what helped drive our passion for success.
Thank you for your understanding and support!
- The CinemaQuestria Staff
Thank you Horse News staff,
- The CQ Crew.
Pre-season the marketing was pretty decent. I don't know what the fuck the marketing team is doing now.
ReplyDeleteWaiting for the next season.
DeleteShould of just stayed the fucking HUB.
ReplyDeleteAgreed
DeleteIt could've happened... only on the Hub.
ReplyDeleteAt least the old Hub folks were fucking competent. Discovery Network's a gaggle of morons.
I agree- I remember watching last week's episode on a streaming service (I don't remember which), and being really, really, REALLY confused by the commercials. Literally one was for baby diapers, followed immediately by a commercial for life insurance with a tone of "you're gonna die one day, so start saving for a casket and funeral now." That preceded a badly computer animated and weirdly voice-acted commercial for tax preparation for deadbeats who might've been deferring for years.
DeleteWho is this channel for? I mean, I get that toddlers and adults like the show as much as pre-tweens, tweens, and teens, but seriously- some of their commercials don't make any sense!
dear god not the ghost of copyright fascism again
DeleteOther than the Fighting is Magic and nuking of Molestia and the Button Mash debacle as well as the problems with Jan Animations, you mean. [I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things, too.]
DeleteThis is a new low, don't get me wrong, but the Hub was clearly loosing their marbles and going downhill for a while. Companies can only take so much success before they decide to shit it all up for themselves, after all.
Maybe it's summer and people got better things to do than watch cartoons?
ReplyDeleteWe've had 2 episodes in May in the past. And one of them was the highest-rated episode on record with over 790,000 viewers, and another with 680,000. The fact a DISCORD episode is the lowest ranked episode since Season 1 is terrible.
DeleteThat or maybe the episode sucked that much =P
DeleteThe discord episode was voted as the best of this season, and also, how would a person know how good an episode is before it premiers?
DeleteIt's Discovery Family's job to market the new episodes to get people to watch them. They clearly are failing at that.
Yeah, I tend to dislike Discord episodes, outside of premiers/finales, but I still watched it. And loved it.
DeleteFfs anytime Hasbro works so damn hard on something pony related, the bronies and horsefuckers throw the most self entitled, bitching fits than any other fandom. As always.
DeleteHasbro and show staff deserve better than having a manchild fanbase.
I don't like Discord. He's dumb, he's stupid, he's a idoit, he's retarded and he's still evil! We the bronies of the Midwest want Discord back to evil and stays evil forever! "FOREVER!" said Pinkie Pie.
DeleteWas it Hasbro that sent the Cease and Desist, their legal counsel, Discovery, or Discovery's legal counsel?
ReplyDeleteAlso, remember, Capper and Co: if it don't make sense, FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Are you going to dig into this further?
Like totally shame on Hasbro/Discovery shutting down an illegal broadcast of show they own the broadcast and copyrights to.
ReplyDeleteI do not care how big a fan you are, if you're not watching the program legally and/or buying official merchant, not fan knock-offs, then you are not supporting the show and can fuck off.
Yeah fuck the fans who ain't living in America! Who gives a shit about them? It's about us! Oh MLP don't appear in your region? Tough fucking shit. Maybe move over here in the States or somewhere where the show isn't region locked or is hitting PAL. Fuck the Aussies and Brittrash complaining they can't view MLP!
DeleteEver heard of Netflix? Fucking communist, free loading dirtbags.
The episodes are totally not available via iTunes, right?
DeleteHey dipshit, by watching the discovery family commercials that are broadcast during the stream, they are supporting the show. You can fuck off you knuckle dragging mouth breathing sack of rotten shit. Seriously, drink some fucking bleach kid.
DeletePeople that think this are ignorant dumbasses that have no idea how this all works. The commercial are ad space purched by sponsors that have an expection of a certain level of viewership. Those watching via stream do not add to accounted viewers so seeing the ads means nothing. Drops in viewership always means risk of losing sponsors and that's what more times than not kills a show.
DeleteIt would be no different than watching someone browse the internet on stream, sure you'll see the ads but the sites aren't getting you as foot traffic and that's what the sponsors care about because that's the only proof they have their ads have been seen.
Educate yourself on the subject at hand next time and maybe you won't sound like you're talking out your ass.
that's all fine and good, except you're wrong.
DeleteStreams do nothing to ratings.
Ratings are only calculated by Nielsen, which those numbers are created by special reporting devices that monitor the television viewing habits of SELECTED families.
So, if a person is in a Nielsen family, they receive Discovery Family on their television, and would watch the show there if anywhere. Why would you struggle with a stream to watch a channel you get on your television? And more importantly if you care about the show that much, and you ARE a Nielsen viewer, why would you not take every opportunity to boost the show's ratings, by watching on your reporting screen?
People who are watching the streams are not Nielsen viewers and don't affect the show's ratings in any way, and yet are still viewing the commercials which pay for the programming by driving the channel's profits.
So Discovery Family should not only be allowing streaming of their channel, to allow for word-of-mouth to spread, and get more Nielsen housholds to tune-in, but should be ENCOURAGING it.
Sounds like Discovery Family's marketing team needs to go back to business school, and relearn marketing 101, because they don't know what the hell they're doing. Seems companies and corporations don't know how to do ANYTHING right anymore. And because, all they CARE about is making money, they FORGOT how to make money.
ReplyDeleteSomething's got to give. And I'm not condoning that anyone do this, I'm only speaking hypothetically. But for corporations like Hasbro to understand the situation, it's probably going to take some insane fanboy to snap and go insane, and commit a violent acct against their corporate headquarters to finally wake up the CEO and the board members and say "the screwballs have spoken."
Let me be clear, violence is not the answer in this situation. We need to be clear about this, and stick it to the companies by any and all means of peaceful solutions and by digging. If we can somehow, through evidence, and cool heads, force Hasbro and Discovery Family to stop it's stupid shit, and rethink their business strategies, us horsefuckers can win this battle against them both.
Remember. Dig calmly, cooly, and smartly.
This is anything BUT capitalism, dipshit. It's CRONY capitalism. Learn the difference. Try again, kid.
ReplyDeleteBecause everyone stops watching MLP because of the season finale last year and got upset about season 3 finale. And we Unicorn Twilight back, because being a unicorn it is her true destiny. The true destiny is to being yourself as a unicorn not being turn something that you're not and that's make your miserable. And we the want the Elements of Harmony back and it is the greatest power of all Equestria rather than rediculios rainbow power that's just wrong. And we want the Golden Oak Library back! And the Friendship Rainbow Kingdom must be Destoryed! It's an eye-sore and it's look like King Haggard's Kingdom from the Last Unicorn. We want Twilight Sparkle to be more of the Last Unicorn and Spike will be more like Puff the Magic Dragon and less of Hasbro.
ReplyDeleteWho the hell is we? If you like, you can rewatch season one or season two, and pretend the cartoon ended there.
DeleteOh my God, autistic anon, are you STILL here?
DeleteI don't understand, why should the "Friendship Rainbow Kingdom" a.k.a Equestria be destroyed? If you meant Twilight's castle, why would you want Twilight to be homeless?
DeleteThank you for citing my posts. It's of course all just speculation, but I really do think Hasbro might have become butthurt about the show's rating dropping so drastically over three episodes and came to the conclusion that the Brony streams might have something to do with it. This of course is complete bullshit, since there are at most a few thousand people watching the streams and most of them aren't from the United States anyway and wouldn't influence the ratings. So it might have something to do with the ratings, but maybe it was just a copyright lawyer gone rogue and Hasbro itself doesn't even know about this. Or maybe they just suddenly decided to something about the streams now.
ReplyDeleteThen we must make that lawyer pay. Find out who the lawyer is, and let's make sure she doesn't screw with the horsefuckers again. But don't do anything illegal.
DeleteCould you be any more edgy? It's like you're a time traveler from 2006 era /b/. Fuck off. We are not legionfags.
ReplyDeleteI'm referring to that post btw. For some reason the reply function is fucked up.
Delete>Then we must make that lawyer pay. Find out who the lawyer is, and let's make sure she doesn't screw with the horsefuckers again. But don't do anything illegal.
And of course, when The Hub was still alive, the site would have that week's episode online after the weekend, and a whole bunch of other things, too.
ReplyDeleteWhat does the Discovery Family site offer? In the immortal words of Nathan Explosion and Super Best Friend Pat, "Nothing!"
It's obvious that Discovery Family doesn't care about Hasbro's shows at all. All they want to do is push their own shitty Discovery shows. I guess that's what Hasbro gets for selling off 10% of the shares back to Discovery.
DeleteMLP:FIM should have just moved to Cartoon Network when the HUB collapsed.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds great, but would CN take them?
DeleteCN is where Hasbro wanted to take the show until Discovery pitched a fit. Discovery sure made Hasbro's decision not to leave completely seem worth it.
DeleteTo me Season 5 so far isn't as exciting as Season 2 or 4.
ReplyDeleteIt gave up opportunities for introducing new mythical creature or new villain (Bloom & Gloom and Appleoosa's Most Wanted)
Make New Friends But Keep Discord was good though.
Make New Friends But Keep Discord Is the WORST Episode Ever! And it's the lowest rating episode ever! And we want Discord back to EVIL and stays EVIL forever and ever! "FOREVER!" Said Pinkie Pie.
DeleteThe Best Night Ever is the BEST Episode Ever! And Season 1 is the Best Season Ever!
Who is "we"? A lot of people like Discord in his new role as a bit of a trickster mentor. Also, Best Night Ever was not the best episode, Pinkie Pride was the best.
DeleteCRONY
ReplyDeletev.s
BRONY
get it?
at least this problem as not surfaced in Canada yet but that's probably cause it airs on FUCKING TREEHOUSE which is for kids that are like 3 fucking years old and that no one gives a shit about and yoopa which is bascily the same as treehouse but for French speakers
ReplyDeleteas for the c&d all I have to say is unless these guys where editing the content in someway FUCK YOU HASBRO AND THE HIGH HORSE YOU RODE ON
ReplyDeleteThis is a pretty good example of Coincidence is not Causality. The report doesn't specify that the C&D was due to low ratings. Perhaps CinemaQuestria was on Hasbro's radar for a while. As another Anon put it, "Why would you struggle with a stream to watch a channel you get on your television?" I'd be willing to bet that the number of people who have Discover Family but choose to watch only on a stream is under 100. Hasbro probably knows this, too. Is it really worth paying the lawyer to regain those viewers? And who among us hasn't bought a Hideaway Pet, window-mount bird house, or container of Gak after watching a show?
ReplyDeleteAside from that, I really hope other streamers aren't shut down. I live in the US, but don't get Discovery Family. Like many others, streaming is a way to both watch episodes and do a little socializing. Come on, Hasbro. Friendship is Magic. Don't take it away.
>people still using their irl info and not just swapping url's and streaming again
ReplyDeleteJesus fuck, what happened internet? It used to take a court subpena to get shit taken down, now you losers flail at the first sign of trouble.
A C&D request is not a court order you dumb fuck. It's actually the politest way a company can ask someone to stop infringing on their copyrights. The streaming site faces no penalty if they choose to not comply, though doing so can result on t legal action taken.
DeleteThough it's more likely that would just have the internet provider shut the site down and avoid a court case.
Capitalism is shooting yourself in the foot, now? I thought that was the complete opposite.
ReplyDeleteIf Hasbro wants their cake and eats it too, they have one solution: Discovery Family can have an official stream on release day. That way they can monitor the viewers and report the stats to the advertisers.
ReplyDeleteNot all cable companies carry Discovery Family. If we can't legally watch it, we will watch it in the gray streams (at least we watch ads, Hasbro). If we can't watch the streams, we'll get it where we can.
Discovery Communications is too busy dealing with actual admitted child molestors to worry about people that a few butthurt anons think are child molestors because they watch kids TV shows.
ReplyDeleteCapitalism is about taking and or running into risks. Holy shit what did they teach u kids in school?
ReplyDeleteLosing viewers?
ReplyDeleteMake New Friends But Keep Discord: 300k viewers
C&D happens...
The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone: 600k viewers.
not that the stream shut down has anything to do with it... but the title of this article is incorrect.
We need the HUB to come back. We just do. Please sign here: https://www.change.org/p/hasbro-and-discovery-communications-bring-back-the-hub-even-if-it-means-having-it-in-addition-to-having-the-discovery-family-tv-channel
ReplyDelete