Why can't Hasbro just end their contract with Discovery Family early?

[FirePuppy 732]

Honestly, can't it be possible that Discovery Family can just end their contract much sooner instead of letting it last for the full amount of time? Besides, international productions of My Little Pony and Transformers before 2021 are already suffering seriously pervasive censorship worldwide, and Hasbro is already giving Discovery Family a hard time themselves by forcing their shows back on the channel while the network itself is trying to make room for WB cartoons.

And if they dare renew their contract again, I am starting a petition to force them to move to another service.

[Madame Rarity 592]

because MLP still popular with Hasbro?

[FirePuppy 732]

1 hour ago, Madame Rarity said:

because MLP still popular with Hasbro?

I demand a different answer than this.

[Iforgotmybrain 5,362]

I'm guessing monetary reasons? I don't honestly know anything about the contract but I have to imagine it wouldn't be financially beneficial for Hasbro to end the contract prematurely especially with the toy market really struggling right now.

[ZiggWheelsManning 9,763]

Intriguing explanation @Iforgotmybrain.  Hasbro is in an unfortunate position.  

Off topic a bit, the question is why can't Star Wars man up, leave Disney and live with Warner Brothers?  I so wanna see Darth Elmer Fudd as much as the next guy  

[FirePuppy 732]

Either way, I still want to see Hasbro move to anywhere but Discovery Family or any other network without a VOD service by the time their contract with DF expires next year at the earliest, since that's when it's currently scheduled. If I see any kind of My Little Pony episode appearing in the April 2025 schedule, I am writing that petition I mentioned earlier.

Not only that, Hasbro Entertainment won't be very likely to earn much money through both Discovery Family and YouTube combined.

Edited February 2 by FirePuppy

[Samurai Equine 50,805]

I'm not an expert on these kind of matters, so if Hasbro and Discovery Family still have an active contract, I cannot say for sure why it hasn't expired early.

But based on other similar contracts I've seen from other, similar companies...

• One reason could be that a contract cannot be voided early unless both sides mutually agree to it. If one side is holding out, the other side would have to seek legal help to end the contract, possibly go to court. In some cases, it would be better to avoid the legal option since the legal fees could have been used for something more important.
• It's also possible that one side still sees potential for something in their favor (profits, product promotion, ratings, etc.), so instead of voiding the contract early, they are trying to come up with the best strategy to make the most of the contract while it lasts. In some cases, renewing a contract means renegotiating the terms so that you get an even better deal than last time. However, the other side won't be so inclined to renew if you're trying to get out of the contract early. You gotta prove that you're still a business partner worth having around.

But hey, I don't work for either Hasbro or Discovery Family. Would love for someone to climb that corporate ladder and find out what is really going on.  All I can say from my personal experience is, if no one is ending a legal contract early, there must be a very important reason at play here. It's probably better to let it play out. Who knows, we might get another MLP cartoon out of it. One that is even better than the last generation; perhaps a generation that returns to television instead of being strictly online.

[WickedGames 223]

Says it will at least go to March 31st 2025 as of now 

[EpicEnergy 23,139]

I have no experience and knowledge in that particular area, nor do I know Hasbro's intentions. That said I'm assuming that either Hasbro is getting a profit out of it or doesn't care to put the effort into ending the contract. Like I said though, I really can't make an educated guess.

[HedonismBot 239]

I'm just hoping that when the contract does expire, Hasbro has plans to take advantage of it. That is, they better after they heavily promoted G5 as a sequel to G4 knowing full well they'd be limited in their ability to treat it as such.

[Megas 27,551]

Legally they probably can’t for one reason or another. It was really stupid of them to sign a contract like that for one of their most popular shows ever but thems the breaks

[FirePuppy 732]

21 hours ago, Megas said:

Legally they probably can’t for one reason or another. It was really stupid of them to sign a contract like that for one of their most popular shows ever but thems the breaks

On a side note, Discovery Family is getting rid of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic from weekends starting this June, but still keeping the full-hour specials for a while.

[WickedGames 223]

4 hours ago, FirePuppy said:

On a side note, Discovery Family is getting rid of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic from weekends starting this June, but still keeping the full-hour specials for a while.

What do you mean? Will it still be airing on weekdays?

Edited May 17 by WickedGames

[FirePuppy 732]

2 hours ago, WickedGames said:

What do you mean? Will it still be airing on weekdays?

Yes, the show will now only be on weekdays after May 31, when by then, Discovery and Hasbro will only have 8-10 months left with each other.

[WickedGames 223]

40 minutes ago, FirePuppy said:

Yes, the show will now only be on weekdays after May 31, when by then, Discovery and Hasbro will only have 8-10 months left with each other.

Well that is good to hear at least 

[Steve Piranha 29,414]

Most likely because doing so will be much more trouble than it’s worth. That’s what usually happens with contracts

[FirePuppy 732]

I have started a petition to convince Hasbro to leave Discovery Family once and for all. Here's the link (I need at least 5 signatures to make it go live):

https://www.change.org/p/hasbro-s-contract-with-warner-bros-discovery-to-not-be-renewed-in-2025

I know petitions don't usually work, but I'm positive this one should do more good than other similar petitions at change.org.

[ZiggWheelsManning 9,763]

On 2024-02-20 at 4:36 PM, WickedGames said:

Says it will at least go to March 31st 2025 as of now 

Just the horror, the sheer horror  

[FirePuppy 732]

I think I know another reason why they renewed that contract. It's kind of a theory, by the way.

By the end of 2022 (when Hasbro's decision on what to do with its ownership of Discovery Family was originally due), Discovery Family's weekly schedule contained roughly 53-60 hours (about 32% to 36% of the entire week) of Hasbro's shows, and they didn't have enough replacement shows by then, thus needing themselves more time with Hasbro to find as many replacement shows from Warner Bros. as they could.

I believe this is exactly what the schedule looked like in December 2022:

5:00 AM - Pound Puppies
6:00 AM - The Adventures of Chuck and Friends
7:00 AM - Transformers Prime (weekends) or Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures (weekdays)
7:30 AM - Transformers Rescue Bots Academy (weekends) or Transformers Prime (weekdays)
8:00 AM - Transformers Rescue Bots
8:30 AM - Petronix Defenders (weekends) or Transformers Rescue Bots Academy (weekdays)
9:00 AM - Petronix Defenders (weekends) or Pound Puppies (weekdays)
9:30 AM - Super Monsters (weekends) or Littlest Pet Shop (weekdays)
10:00 AM - Super Monsters (weekends) or My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (season 1; weekdays)
10:30 AM - Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures (weekends) or My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (season 1; weekdays)
11:00 AM - Littlest Pet Shop (weekends) or Super Monsters (weekdays)
11:30 AM - My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (weekends) or Super Monsters (weekdays)
12:00 PM - My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (weekends) or Littlest Pet Shop (weekdays)
12:30 PM - My Little Pony: Pony Life (weekends) or Littlest Pet Shop (weekdays)
1:00 PM - My Little Pony 1-hour special (weekends) or My Little Pony: Pony Life (weekdays)
1:30 PM - My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (weekdays only, airing through 4:00 PM)

So far now, almost half of this schedule has been occupied by Warner Bros. cartoons, making it look like as if Hasbro owned 20% of the channel.

Edited July 17 by FirePuppy

[KPackratt 234]

I seriously hope Hasbro ends their contract with Warner Bros. Discovery on March 2025, if not sooner. I've had enough with their suppression of the streaming rights to certain Hasbro shows, especially Pony Life. On top of that, they chose to conclude their broadcasts of the Equestria Girls series with the worst special ever made: Spring Breakdown. Like, really? There were MUCH better Equestria Girls cartoons you could've ended your run with, like the first Equestria Girls movie for example (which is what I personally would've picked instead if I was in charge of that channel). I better not see MLP:FIM on Discovery Family's post-April 2025 programming schedule or I will lose it.

I think we should start contacting Discovery to plead them to consider ending their long broadcast run of Hasbro shows, including FIM.

[ZiggWheelsManning 9,763]

A Hasbro or some other company executive's bloated and hungry words, "We don't want da ponies, but we want da money!"  

[FirePuppy 732]

13 hours ago, KPackratt said:

I seriously hope Hasbro ends their contract with Warner Bros. Discovery on March 2025, if not sooner. I've had enough with their suppression of the streaming rights to certain Hasbro shows, especially Pony Life. On top of that, they chose to conclude their broadcasts of the Equestria Girls series with the worst special ever made: Spring Breakdown. Like, really? There were MUCH better Equestria Girls cartoons you could've ended your run with, like the first Equestria Girls movie for example (which is what I personally would've picked instead if I was in charge of that channel). I better not see MLP:FIM on Discovery Family's post-April 2025 programming schedule or I will lose it.

I think we should start contacting Discovery to plead them to consider ending their long broadcast run of Hasbro shows, including FIM.

There's a link to a petition I wrote in an earlier post of mine on this thread. Sign it if you really want the show removed that bad.