Are ‘Walker’ and ‘All American’ Canceled? The CW Bosses Give Update

Look through The CW‘s newly announced schedule for the Fall 2024-2025 season and you’ll notice that Walker and All American are missing from the lineup. Does this mean the series are canceled? The CW bosses Dennis Miller and Brad Schwartz addressed the shows’ notable omissions.

Walker and All American are two of The CW’s most successful shows and some of the only titles to survive the massive programming overhaul the network carried out in recent years. Miller and Schwartz said on May 16, the day of The CW’s upfront presentation during which the network provides programming updates, that decisions about the fate of Walker and All American will be made “soon.”

“We didn’t feel any need to rush to meet some Upfront deadline,” Schwartz, the President of Entertainment at The CW, told 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 may be safe because of its Netflix deal. Like past CW shows, full seasons of All American drop on Netflix eight days after the season finale airs.

“That makes it a little more interesting for everybody,” Schwartz said of All American. “We’ll be making a decision on that soon. We’re talking about it right now.”

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Walker does not have the same deal, which may be causing trouble for the Jared Padalecki-led Walker, Texas Ranger spinoff.

“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,” Schwartz said. Streaming deals apparently play a big role in The CW’s decision making.

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

Miller said that “options we’ve talked about” are inking a package deal with a streaming platform for their shows or shelling their shows out individually. The shows’ fates don’t necessarily hinge upon streaming deals, however. Miller said it’s not as “cause/effect” as that. “But that is a critical component for our scripted strategy,” he noted. “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.”

Schwartz acknowledged that The CW programming landscape looks a lot different than it used to. “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,” he said. Live sports are going to be a big part of its programming model moving forward, but they still want the slate to feel familiar to longtime viewers.

“Wrestling is going to probably be our biggest night of the week,” Schwartz explained. “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 & Lois and The Librarians bring an audience we have had before, game shows brings a different audience.”

Walker‘s prequel spinoff, Walker Independence, was canceled after one season. All American’s sister series, All American: Homecoming, is still running but won’t launch until the summer.

All American, Mondays, 8/7c, The CW

Walker, Wednesdays, 8/7c, The CW