Quick note of Hasbro's handling of G5 in 2024

[Starlight Serenade 3,846]

 FYI - I've been mostly out of the loop the past several months on most of the MLP and Hasbro news, so I decided to do some catching up on their public posts and SEC filings of the past year, as I had some time this Sunday morning.

I have a short summary at the bottom of this post as I understand this is a bit long.

First, I recall this LinkedIn post from their Global Brand Manager last year when they announced that it was the "final chapter" of MYM, just pulled it up via LinkedIn in spoilers below:

 

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What is very interesting though is when I was checking this same executive's recent LinkedIn feed, I actually found this post and saw that during the past year, Hasbro has been terminating a lot of employees throughout the past year, which matches the info on the Form 8-K that I linked in spoilers too:

 

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Form 8-K, dated December 9, 2023: https://investor.hasbro.com/static-files/cfcc828c-f205-47af-938c-795f10b5fbcf

 

In their most recently filed Form 8-K, dated October 24, 2024, they provided some updates on things:  https://investor.hasbro.com/node/36886/html
 

MLP is only mentioned on the most recent Form 8-K and Form 10-Q as they had growth in licensed consumer products, here's a direct quote:

"PORTFOLIO BRANDS: Portfolio Brands net revenues decreased $21.0 million, or 12%, in the third quarter of 2024 compared to the third quarter of 2023. Lower net revenues from POWER RANGERS, BABY ALIVE, GI JOE and PJ MASKS products were partially offset by revenue contributions from MY LITTLE PONY trading card products."

 

 

Below are some interesting quotes regarding Hasbro's television and film business from their Form 10-Q, filed October 31, 2024:

Source: https://investor.hasbro.com/node/36906/html

 

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Unsatisfied performance obligations

Unsatisfied performance obligations relate primarily to in-production television content to be delivered in the future under existing agreements with partnering content providers such as broadcasters, distributors, television networks and subscription video on demand services. As of September 29, 2024, unrecognized revenue attributable to unsatisfied performance obligations expected to be recognized in the future was $2.7 million. Of this amount, we expect to recognize $0.6 million in the remainder of 2024 and $2.1 million in 2025. These amounts include only fixed consideration.

 

(3) Sale of Non-Core Entertainment One Film and TV Business

 

 

On December 27, 2023, the Company completed the sale of its Entertainment One film and television business ("eOne Film and TV") to Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. and Lions Gate International Motion Pictures S.à.r.l (collectively "Lionsgate"), pursuant to the terms of an Equity Purchase Agreement dated August 3, 2023, among Hasbro and Lionsgate. The Company sold eOne Film and TV for a sales price of $375.0 million in cash, subject to the satisfaction of customary net working capital closing conditions and holdbacks for certain retained liabilities, plus the assumption by Lionsgate of production financing loans. During the nine months ended September 29, 2024, the Company recorded a $24.4 million expense in Loss on disposal of business on the Consolidated Statements of Operations associated with certain purchase price and related adjustments.

 

The Company recorded a pre-tax non-cash charge of $539.0 million within Loss on disposal of business on the Consolidated Statements of Operations for the year ended December 31, 2023, of which $473.0 million was recorded during the three and nine months ended October 1, 2023. The Company also recorded pre-tax cash transaction expenses of $35.1 million within Selling, distribution and administration expense on the Consolidated Statements of Operations for the year ended December 31, 2023. See Note 3 of the Company's 2023 Annual Report for further detail of the Company's sale of the eOne Film and TV business.

 

The Company determined that the non-core eOne Film and TV business met the criteria to be classified as held for sale at October 1, 2023, but did not meet the criteria to be classified as discontinued operations. As a result, the related assets and liabilities were included in the separate assets and liabilities held-for-sale line items of the asset and liability sections of the consolidated balance sheets.

 

 

 

Short Summary:

 

Essentially throughout 2024, Hasbro drastically reduced all of their involvement in the television and film production as they realigned their strategy to focus more on toy/game operations. With "unsatisfied performance obligations" following the sale of Entertainment One in late 2023, they were limiting their television content production for a new shift in business strategy in 2024. This actually helps explain why they are using an "asset light strategy" as well, basically limiting ownership of physical assets but focusing more on licensing/distribution, which is why they outsourced production of TYT and MYM. This would mean that they could adapt to new market changes much more faster and efficiently,  however that meant uncertainty for their products and projects. Hasbro probably cancelled TYT and MYM as part of their shift in business strategy towards digital gaming and Wizards of The Coast based on the information on these reports.

 

For 2025, it looks like they are shifting focus on more merchandising/product opportunities with MLP rather than new animated content. Though that's not to say that they are not working on something new as on a magazine article published from last September, states that they are planning a "brand evolution", source linked below:

 

Source: https://issuu.com/maxpublishing/docs/hasbro_2024/12

 

I really hope I'm wrong, but based on all this information as of writing - it seems that we may not receive any news for a new show/gen until probably later this year or heck, maybe even next year!

 

I think we will have a better idea when the next set of public announcements and reports arrive within the next month or so.

 

What do you think? Please let me know if I missed anything.

[Snow 8,227]

I've not been following this sort of thing very much but I am under the impression that Hasbro has been burned by poor returns on their recently released movies and such, which presumably has scared them off media releases for the time being?

Edited February 2 by Snow
Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy

[StaryStory 3,898]

I think it's all correct, thanks for sharing this, it was stuff like this that was missing for a thread I wrote a few days ago. I think it could be one of the reasons why they didn't give the green light to that new show concept from 2024, and why we're not getting any new in 2025 (yet). Though, their plans can change all the time and we don't know what to expect from it. In 2023 they said that TyT would continue for 2 more years, and now in 2024 theu said that in 2025 they would be focusing in G1 / Retro MLP for merchandise, and I'm still not seeing anything from these plans (but February just started, so let's wait)

I belive with "brand evolution" they referr to making the IP more mainstream ~☆

  On 2025-02-02 at 8:21 PM, Snow said:

I've not been following this sort of thing very much but I am under the impression that Hasbro has been burned by poor returns on their recently released movies and such, which presumably has scared them off media releases for the time being?

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Could be, though they are already working in the next Transformers show ~☆

[Starlight Serenade 3,846]

  On 2025-02-02 at 8:21 PM, Snow said:

I've not been following this sort of thing very much but I am under the impression that Hasbro has been burned by poor returns on their recently released movies and such, which presumably has scared them off media releases for the time being?

Expand  

Pulled from the Form 8-K:

"Entertainment Segment

•Revenue decline of 86% impacted by the eOne divestiture; absent this impact, revenue declined 17% driven by the timing of the delivery of deals.

•Operating profit of $10 million compared to operating loss of $469 million in the third quarter 2023.

•Adjusted operating profit of $13 million compared to adjusted operating profit of $8 million in the third quarter 2023."

 

Hasbro is also no longer financing Transformers movies, so it definitely supports the idea that they don't want to invest more into tv/film:
Source from November 23, 2024: https://www.cbr.com/hasbro-not-financing-transformers-movies-is-good/

Article quote: "As relayed by Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks, Hasbro will no longer be co-financing movie ventures based on its franchises. Instead, much of this money will go toward video games and similar projects. "

 

 

  On 2025-02-02 at 8:33 PM, Rafa Stary said:

I think it's all correct, thanks for sharing this, it was stuff like this that was missing for a thread I wrote a few days ago. I think it could be one of the reasons why they didn't give the green light to that new show concept from 2024, and why we're not getting any new in 2025 (yet). Though, their plans can change all the time and we don't know what to expect from it. In 2023 they said that TyT would continue for 2 more years, and now in 2024 theu said that in 2025 they would be focusing in G1 / Retro MLP for merchandise, and I'm still not seeing anything from these plans (but February just started, so let's wait)

I belive with "brand evolution" they referr to making the IP more mainstream ~☆

Could be, though they are already working in the next Transformers show ~☆

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Yeah I've been meaning to sit down and go through it, I've just been busy with personal things. With their current model, plans can change at the drop of a hat or mid production which unfortunately happened to TYT and MYM, despite having more planned for both series.

As for the retro stuff - there were retro G1 design shirts I saw for sale at Walmart a while back. The year is just starting so I'm sure more is coming.

I'm trying to figure out how they would approach the next project and boost MLP's popularity. It's going to be hard. Despite G5 high social interactions number(I believe in one of their magazines or so, they had around 1 billion a year or two ago from when they started in 2021), yet they still cancelled its shows. So I'm curious what their strategy is as their other IPs like Transformers are having issues too.

 

 

Edited February 2 by Starlight Serenade
wrong attachment lol

[StaryStory 3,898]

  On 2025-02-02 at 10:29 PM, Starlight Serenade said:

 It's going to be hard. Despite G5 high social interactions number(I believe in one of their magazines or so, they had around 1 billion a year or two ago from when they started in 2021), yet they still cancelled its shows.

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I believe that maybe Youtube Kids content without any ad may generate a different kind of revenue for them? I really don't understand how it works, if we don't have a response then that's a problem. 1 billion of interactions may not mean that they are getting great numbers

[Starlight Serenade 3,846]

  On 2025-02-02 at 11:43 PM, Rafa Stary said:

I believe that maybe Youtube Kids content without any ad may generate a different kind of revenue for them? I really don't understand how it works, if we don't have a response then that's a problem. 1 billion of interactions may not mean that they are getting great numbers

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Youtube Kids content does limit ads towards children and that limit does lower how much a company would get paid for ads placed during children's programming. There are also other restrictions in regards to ads as they are more strict with them for children. Sources at the bottom.

I recall that they have separate channels on Youtube for TYT. Both the official MLP and MLP:TYT channels, where most TYT episodes have hundreds of thousands to several millions of views for various TYT episodes on each channel alone. That gives us the impression that at least they are doing pretty good on each channel individually and even better combined. Remember these are 5 min episodes unlike previous series. 

Another major finding that I just came across on google search is that supposedly Youtube Kids views are counted separately than the regular Youtube views. The ones I saw earlier were for regular Youtube, so I can only assume the number is just as big, if not larger on the Kids platform as it's more tailored for children.That's quite interesting as it means that they had even more views than we previously thought! Hmmm.

The G5 movie was in the top 10 films on Netflix internationally as well. It did not have a huge impact at the box office, but that was mainly because they released the film on Netflix at the same time so that ate into box office profits. I just recalled that the film was released in 2021, so there were pandemic business restrictions in places, such as theaters for example, still in place at the time too.

As for MYM, I recall seeing that in the top 10 cartoon shows whenever new eps would drop onto Netflix. However I don't know what the viewership numbers were for that. I doubt they will ever release those numbers as Netflix usually doesn't drop viewership numbers for any of their shows and films either. They usually say something is successful if they made it to the top ten of the week or so.

 

Youtube Kids Ads sources:

https://support.google.com/youtubekids/answer/6130541?hl=en

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6168681?sjid=18416226583841819884-NC