The reason why season 3 was cut short?

[DjHarmony 5]

I am new to being a brony and I have fallen in love with the series. Hopefully I can make this my home until season 4. But Is the reason why season 3 was only 13 episodes because of Equestria Girls?

[Grand_Finale 529]

I think equestria girls, And i think season 4 is going to be longer than the average season as well, which i am pumped for personally

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,873]

As far as I know, the reason was for syndication purposes. They had to hit that magical 65 episode mark and 13 did just that. Equestria Girls was being worked since last year, so I don't think that could be the reason.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Kyoshi

[notdog1996 315]

From what I heard, they wanted to test the waters since the storyboard editor changed.  They made it touch the syndication mark so, if it wasn't successful, they could cancel it.  Obviously, that didn't happen.

[LordDiscord 289]

As far as I know, the reason was for syndication purposes. They had to hit that magical 65 episode mark and 13 did just that. Equestria Girls was being worked since last year, so I don't think that could be the reason.

I really don't want to sound stupid, but what exactly does syndication mean? Is it just so they can make more seasons or does it mean that they are actually trying to push it to other countries. I really hope the latter because they don't show MLP over in Scotland and it is really annoying.

[Scootalove 10,689]

I don't think that Equestria Girls was the reason why Season 3 had a low amount of episodes. My guess is the writers weren't able to write more episodes so, Hasbro must have told them to cut the episodes short to work more on future episodes.

[Esk 201]

When news first came out about why Season 3 only had three episodes, Digibrony made a video shortly afterwards talking about Season 3 in general, which included him speculating why. I believe he's right with his statement, especially after seeing Hasbro taking down all of the episodes from Youtube due to copyright issues.

 

http://youtu.be/Bh9JtCOFk98?t=2m40s

[Jokuc 8,174]

 

I actually do think that season 3 only had 13 episodes because of the film. "Special reasons" makes me think of "a movie we're making". But I don't know. Maybe not.

[Homura Akemi 974]

I thought that was exactly the reason. I had heard some talk of some side project in the making, which was obviously Equestria Girls, but having 13 episodes in order to generate a grand total of 65 episodes is also plausable.

[Wonderbolt_Spitfire 235]

I really don't want to sound stupid, but what exactly does syndication mean? Is it just so they can make more seasons or does it mean that they are actually trying to push it to other countries. I really hope the latter because they don't show MLP over in Scotland and it is really annoying.

 

Syndication is when a show is sold to other networks (normally earlier episodes) to show in its own time slot. Some examples of syndication would be how CBS owns "How I met your mother" but other networks show older episodes of the show. So when people say "they hit the syndication mark" it just means Hasbro or HUB can sell the older episodes ( if the cartoon is still currently running) to other networks.

[Princess Periwinkle 3,775]

I don't really think it had anything to do with Equestria Girls. Probably more along the lines of syndication and such.

 

I think equestria girls, And i think season 4 is going to be longer than the average season as well, which i am pumped for personally

 

Nope, season four has been confirmed to have 26 episodes. [source]

[Lunas Husband 2,777]

MLP:EQG was not the reason, Truth be told lots of ponies thinks its this or even that or blah blah blah. The only ones who really know why it was cut short is Hasbro, but I think its because the hole thing with twilicorn....

[Jadefire 2,798]

With Season 3 being only 13 episodes long made it so there are a total of 65 episodes, which is the milestone for which a show can be put into long term reruns.

 

However, since Friendship is Magic was so successful that it has long since been approved for more seasons. However, a lot of people don't understand syndication, so that lead to the spreading of a lot of ridiculous rumors (like Equestria Girls taking up everyone's time, or the writers not being able to write enough for Season 3, or the show being canceled which spread like wildfire months ago). All of whom can easily be shown to be illogical: (Equestria Girls was being worked on for quite a long time, it wouldn't have affected the show itself. The writers still have MANY show ideas and they weren't being pressed for time. And why the hell would Hasbro cancel a series that's making a large amount of money for them? Even corrupt and evil corporations wouldn't do something like that.)

 

Anyway, this website explains this in much more detail: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SixtyFiveEpisodeCartoon

Edited July 28, 2013 by Jadeofblades

[LordDiscord 289]

Syndication is when a show is sold to other networks (normally earlier episodes) to show in its own time slot. Some examples of syndication would be how CBS owns "How I met your mother" but other networks show older episodes of the show. So when people say "they hit the syndication mark" it just means Hasbro or HUB can sell the older episodes ( if the cartoon is still currently running) to other networks.

So that means there may be hope that a network that's shows over here, may get their hands on the previous seasons and will thin release them over here and other countries that have that network.