With the upcoming departure of Jiyoung and the already announced departure of Nicole, KARA is a group which, for all intents and purposes, is dead in the water. No one told DSP Media though.
According to the group’s label, KARA will continue sometime in the latter half of the year after the three remaining members do their solo activities (but please don’t ask for specifics so that DSP can back out at any time once they realize this particular ship has already sailed and sunk):
In a phone call with ‘Entertainment Relay‘, a DSP Media rep stated, “They will probably focus on their individual activities during the first-half of the year and return to fans with an album in the latter-half.” In response to the question, “Are you recruiting a new member?” The rep commented, “There has been nothing discussed about that matter.”
Basically, if there is even a chance that Hara, Gyuri and Seungyeon retain enough popularity to release a single that will make DSP one cent, they will probably hold them to it, even if most of KARA’s fans have moved on by that point. Adding new members now wouldn’t bring enough “newness” to win KARA many new supporters and its dwindling existing fan base is only going to get smaller as the present members of KARA get older. It is hard to fault DSP, given that KARA has been the label’s biggest (and only) cash cow but sometimes you have to let the amputated, mutated corpse of a loved one just die already.
Yellow Slug Reviews 
I think they know it’s over but don’t want to say it publicly. This is the same company that wouldn’t come out and say FinKL had disbanded even after all 4 members had left DSP.
Or DSP can just backfill Nicole & Jiyoung with Jaekyung & Hyunyoung and I’ll stay loyal to Frankenstein corpse of Kara. I just watched the Rainbow Blaxx teaser video for ‘Cha Cha’ and have a sinking feeling no amount of macarons can save them from being further sidelined.
This same thing happened with JYP and The Wonder Girls. After Sunye announced that she was getting married, JYP tried everything to keep them together, but once it was revealed that
Sohee wouldn’t renew her contract, JYP had no choice but to disband them. Its time for Kara to disband…
I wonder if the remaining three members knew about Nicole and Jiyoung’s impending departure before they re-signed with DSP.
If not, I imagine they’re pissed.
And if they did know, I’m curious about what they had in mind moving forward. Maybe they figured DSP would still get them enough solo work to make it worth staying?
My guess is that the remaining 3 probably knew. It remains to be seen whether DSP can relaunch Kara effectively, but I can’t see any of the 3 having much of a career outside of the group, unlike say Hyuna from 4Minute.
It still blows my mind that Jiyoung is already a K-Pop veteran at only 20 (Nicole’s 22), so for the 2 youngest members of Kara, I’d believe they still see the possibility of themselves re-entering the industry as an actress or solo act in the near future. After all, there’s at least 1 other that left DSP and then gone on to have a phenomenally successful solo career (Lee Hyori).
They most likely did know and, even if they didn’t, I think they made their own decision independent of whatever the others did.