Walker's fate on The CW is questionable but not due to viewership

Walker Season 4 has only just started on The CW, and there are already questions about Season 5 happening. This may not be a network decision.

Deadline looked into the chances of the three pre-Nexstar CW shows being renewed for another season. It’s unlikely that all three will be renewed, despite The CW potentially wanting them. This also comes down to the studios that actually create the shows.

All American, Walker, and All American: Homecoming are all licensed to The CW. CBS and Warner Bros. takes on the production costs of the shows, with CBS behind the Jared Padalecki crime series. Deadline shares that The CW licenses the show for around $500m per episode, which is on the low side, and this is where the problem lies.

CBS may decide to no longer make Walker

CBS and The CW will need to negotiate on the show. If CBS decides that the $500m per episode is too low for licensing and The CW refuses to pay more, then we could see CBS decide that it is not cost-effective to produce the series.

This is despite Walker being second in the demo across all CW shows and the most-watch CW series in the total audience. The viewership in this case is a smaller part of the renewal puzzle.

It’s not the first time that the studio deciding to end a show has caused cancellations on The CW. We saw that happen a lot in May 2022 before Nexstar took over. Studios ended the agreements because the cost to produce the show was too much compared to the licensing fees.

Finding a way to cut costs on the show isn’t always the option. There’s only so many ways to cut the costs without affecting the quality.

One option is to go the co-production route with international companies, but that could lead to a change of location. Padalecki isn’t going to want to move from his home state. One of the reasons he took this show was that it was filmed in Austin, Texas, which is where he lives. Supernatural fans will remember that filming in Vancouver, Canada and the leads keeping their families in Texas led to reduced episode numbers and eventually them deciding it was time to end the show. They wanted to be with their young families, and we can’t really blame them.

So, it does look like Walker may not make it through another year. It all depends on negotiations and license fees at this point.

Walker airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.