Yes, some very big and in many ways disappointing news. After a lot of drama last night in the fandom as NickandMore reported that this Friday's Korra airings have switched from having both K308 and K309, to now just airing K308. It now seems like after K308, Korra will not be airing on Nick, instead the remaining 5 episodes will be available digitally and we assume it will be the case with Book 4 also. We will be getting further clarification on this at San Diego Comic Con, which starts today, but we will probably only hear details on Friday at the panel. We know this info thanks to Bryan Konietzko on Tumblr korrachibiHe followed this up by reblogging a funny Korra gif and posting the following
Well this helped cheer me up.
So this big change has come at a complete shock and disappointment to even the creators. Mike then posted the following on his facebook page
"the rest of the season will be available from various sites online. We'll let you know when we have more details. Thanks"
He also clarified that Book 4 is safe and will air, though the tinge of disappointment is clear to see in his post.
"there most definitely is a book 4. All the Pre-production is done and Studio Mir is hard at work on the animation."
Thoughts/Analysis First things first, we do not know everything about this decision or what is happening just yet. So I am not going to jump to any conclusions about what is happening, until we find out the details at comic con. My first thought is just that the atmosphere at the start of the Korra Panel on Friday in San Diego is going to be something else, you will have a room filled to bursting with the most hardcore Avatar/Korra fans out there who know what has transpired over not just the past day or two, but in general how Nick have seemed to handle Book 3 as a whole. The panel NEEDS to open with clarification and assurances about what is going on with Korra. Assure us that Book 4 will still be released and explain the crazy 180s that have happened. Going from the tv adverts of "Can't be seen Online" and "Episodes 1-3 now available to buy digitally delayed 3 weeks after airing" to suddenly "Not on tv" and "Available first digitally" apparently. What are Nick doing? It is clear from the ratings for both Book 2 and now 3 that they are down, now much of that is down to have Nick have handled the advertising, merchandising and in general treatment of Korra. So why now? Why has the decision been made over half way through Book 3 super suddenly, with them changing the whole schedule that we have had since last week. My thoughts are that Nick now really see the Korra fandom as nearly completely online focused, hence why they have in the past tested the waters with new things like online premieres of episodes that we have to unlock via fan interaction with Korra Nation. The tv ratings are low, but the show has one of the biggest and most intense online fandoms out there. I think and hope that they realise that tv ratings are not the be all and end all for a show, and that perhaps allowing from first showing direct purchase of the episodes is a better business decision to capitalise on the popularity of Korra. We have seen an increasing trend of new seasons of shows and even new shows having the airing model of putting a whole or half of a season up online on a netflix etc in one go, and it seems to have worked well. With Book 4 this could perhaps be something we are looking at, remember Star Wars The Clone Wars Season 6. That never aired on tv, but netflix got the exclusive release of the full season in one chunk and it has since come to other digital platforms. In short, yes it is sad and disappointing to see Korra move off tv where it and Avatar have been since ATLA, but a move to digital is not necessarily the end of the world, in a time where we are increasingly moving away from tv in general, perhaps Nick are using Korra as an experiment with Online original release. What this does have me worried about is what this means for any potential future Avatar show post Korra. Mike and Bryan seem upset about what has happened here, the fandom in general is furious at nick and Nick seem to not really care a massive amount about Korra from what we can see. Right now based on what we know does it look like Nick would fun a new Avatar show anytime soon. I am not so sure. The present with Korra seems ok to me, but the future of Avatar has me worried. We will see what happens at comic con!