There has been a lot of love and appreciation shown towards Avatar The Last Airbender and the universe it created over the last year or so. For example, in 2020, both The Last Airbender and its sequel series Legend of Korra came to Netflix and it was a major success for both sides of the equation as they got to see them all via one streaming service. Later that year, there was a reunion panel, and then this year came the “Braving The Elements” podcast featuring stars of the universe and the creation of Avatar Studios.
As a byproduct of that announcement, it’s been revealed by the head of Nickelodeon that Avatar The Last Airbender will eventually leave Netflix and become a part of Paramount+ exclusively. When asked if other titles such as iCarly will be taken off Netflix in the future, Robbins confirmed that this is the plan:
“Yes. And it’s not like this is some secret that we’re pulling the wool over anybody else’s eyes on other services. They’re happy to have the content and they understand the strategy. We’re very upfront about it,”
This is a move that makes sense in the business side of things, but it will anger many casual fans. After all, Netflix is the biggest streaming platform with hundreds of millions of account users. While Paramount+ (which used to be CBS All Access if you recall) has 36 million as of May 2021. That’s a lot…but not up to Netflix’s level.
The other main reason why it makes sense for TLA (and eventually Korra no doubt) to be exclusive to Paramount+ is because of Avatar Studios. Nickelodeon is (finally) bent on bringing as much Avatar content to their platform as possible, and if they’re bringing in new things, they’ll want to make sure the original content is there on the platform as well.
So if you have Netflix and not Paramount+…you’ll want to watch the Avatar franchises before they leave.