I don't get why people think this. S3 was 13 episodes so the show would be 65 episodes. Then you can pack the 65 episodes up for syndication.
Good news is that with S4 announced, they have a reason to try for another 65 episodes to complete another syndication package.
Syndication packages are important, but they aren't everything.
Hasbro's CEO said that he felt that shows don't need as much money to "stay relevant" as they do to be created in the first place, so he cut Transformers Prime and MLP:FIM's third-year budgets in half. It was up to the show's producers to decide whether they wanted 13 full-budget episodes, or 26 half-budget episodes. This gave Hasbro enough room in their budget to create an entirely new triple-A franchise, or to bump a couple of "A" franchises up to triple-A status, or whatever they decided to do with the money they saved. Some of it might have gone to Equestria Girls, some of it might have gone to Littlest Pet Shop... who knows?
Transformers Prime's producers thought that getting their budget cut in half was a strong signal that their show was about to get cancelled (ratings on the Hub are strong, but not as strong as they'd be on a bigger network, and both Transformers and MLP's cartoons lose money, but Hasbro keeps saying "it's okay, we're trying to grow the Hub" and toy sales make up for the loss), so they straight-up ended their show, despite a six-year plan for the series. It adds weight to the theory that Twilight jumped the shark at the end of S3 because the MLP producers thought that their show was getting cancelled.
The CEO apparently realized his error, and restored MLP:FIM's budget for S4. Not sure what he's going to do to get the Transformers producers back to the table. They
ended their show, so they'll pretty much have to come up with an entirely new show if they want to keep working for Hasbro.
