The CW, home of popular television franchises like the Arrowverse, Supernatural, and The Vampire Diaries, was reportedly losing double what it earned prior to its sale in mid-2022.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, an analysis of new owner Nexstar's SEC filings for this quarter in 2021-22 confirmed The CW had a quarterly revenue of "about $100 million" for an estimated annual total of between $370 million and $405 million but had annual losses between $300 million and $400 million. While The CW has never made a profit since its creation in 2006, these figures mean that the network could have started costing almost $2 for every $1 it made for owners Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery.
Nexstar Media Group acquired the network from co-owners Warner Bros. TV and CBS Studios in August 2022, gaining 75% of the network and $54 million for its trouble. Warner Bros. and CBS were each left with 12.5 percent ownership in The CW. The network itself never made money for the owners, but its programming was produced by the studios that owned it, who then benefitted from international sales and a $1 billion deal made with Netflix in 2010. When both co-owners chose to move their CW programming to in-house streaming services HBO Max and Paramount+, the business model reportedly became unsound.
The CW Marches On Wearily
Shortly after acquiring The CW, Nexstar began announcing big changes for the network. Per the deal made, it will continue airing 12 scripted shows produced by the previous owners for at least a year, including Superman & Lois, Walker: Independence and The Winchesters. Despite this, Nexstar's executive VP and CFO Lee Ann Gliha recently shared that there may be no Warner Bros. or CBS shows left on The CW in the near future. "Over the course of the next year, we're really working to develop our slate, which will then come online in the 2023-2024 broadcast season. We will have some carryover commitment for the CBS and the WBD programming in that year, but it's minimal at that point."
The "retooling" is already underway according to Nexstar President Tom Carter, who shared shortly that despite the network's largely teen-aimed programming, the average age of their viewers was actually 58. Even before the sale was finalized, much of The CW's scripted programming was canceled, including hits such as Riverdale, Legacies, and Legends of Tomorrow, and in contradiction to earlier reports that unscripted content was safe, it was recently announced that Whose Line is it Anyway? will be ending after its current season.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter