The CW's All American and Walker Await Renewal Decisions

All American and Walker are two of The CW’s biggest shows.

So, it was somewhat of a surprise that neither show has been handed a renewal and a spot on the network’s fall schedule, which was unveiled this morning.

The CW bosses Dennis Miller and Brad Schwartz explained why this is the case but said that there are ongoing conversations with the studios behind these shows with Schwartz promising that a decision on All American will happen “soon”.

Both shows are expensive and as Deadline has explained before, financials for all three homegrown dramas are challenging, particularly for Walker, which won’t be able to continue unless its very low license fee is raised by the network.

Schwartz, who is President of Entertainment at The CW, told Deadline, “We didn’t feel any need to rush to meet some Upfront deadline. All American is on the air right now, so we’re seeing how that does. Walker is about [seven] episodes in. We don’t need to make a decision on those anytime soon, unless except for some artificial Upfront deadline. I feel like we have really gotten to a 12 month a year development and greenlight cycle. You’ll hear some pickups in the next few weeks.”

All American has a slightly different financial model, given its deal with Netflix. “That makes it a little more interesting for everybody,” he added. “We’ll be making a decision on that soon. We’re talking about it right now.”

The show was recently handed two extra episodes.

“On Walker, we’ve had many conversations, Dennis has had some conversations recently as well, many conversations with CBS [Studios] about continuing or not continuing that show,” he added.

Miller alluded to issues with streaming when it comes to these big scripted shows.

“It appears that you really need to have a multi-platform architecture in order to do scripted programming,” said The CW President Miller. “It became a question of strategically what kind of SVOD or AVOD deal should we have so we could justify the economics of scripted.”

He added that the company was looking at either doing a package deal for a number of its shows with a streamer or parceling them out individually. Both of these are “options we’ve talked about”.

Asked whether a streaming deal could see all three shows saved, Miller said he doesn’t think it’s “cause/effect”. “But that is a critical component for our scripted strategy. We’re telling suppliers when they come in now, think of us as a critical first step to market this IP but we need that other piece to make it work,” he added.

All American: Homecoming, meanwhile, does not launch until the summer.

Schwartz said that he believes this year’s fall schedule is as “strong” as The CW has ever had. “It might not have all the big shiny superhero shows on it but it’s broadening our audience in a way that we needed to grow.

The final season of Superman & Lois is on the schedule, alongside Canadian drama Sullivan’s Crossing but there are plenty of shows in limbo including drama Family Law, which was renewed by Global for a fourth season in January.

There will be plenty of sports on the schedule including WWE NXT on Tuesday; ACC Football, NASCAR Xfinity Series and Pac-12 Football on Saturday; as well as Inside the NFL, moving from Thursday to Friday in its second season on the CW.

“Wrestling is going to probably be our biggest night of the week,” Schwartz added. “There’s some weekends where we have 14 hours of consecutive sports. Every night of the week kind of feels really good, every night of the week kind of feels like we’re bringing new audiences Sullivan’s Crossing brings an audience to us that hadn’t been on The CW before. Superman and Lois and The Librarians bring an audience we have had before, game shows brings a different audience.”