Dumb Reasons These TV Shows Were Cancelled

There was an astounding 19 shows canceled by The CW in 2022 and 2023: "Riverdale," "Nancy Drew," "The Flash," "Kung Fu," "Walker: Independence," "The Winchesters," "Gotham Knights," "Would I Lie To You?," "Two Sentence Horror Stories," "Batwoman," "Charmed," "Dynasty," "In the Dark," "Legends of Tomorrow," "Legend of the Hidden Temple," "Naomi," "Roswell, New Mexico," "Stargirl," "Tom Swift," and "4400".  At this time, only four original dramas previously on the line-up — "Walker," "Superman & Lois," and both "All American" and its spinoff "All American: Homecoming" — have been renewed.

Some of these shows naturally reached their conclusions, while others were less than successful, but altogether, the mass of cancelations is startling. Why this extreme house clearing? Well, in 2022, the majority of shares in The CW were sold from previous co-owners Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery to Nexstar Media Group, which canceled everything in an attempt to boost profitability.

There's a lot of dumb to go around here. There's the dumbness of the previous owners reportedly running a major network for 15 years without ever being profitable — which is either bad business or extremely sketchy Hollywood accounting. There's the dumb-in-retrospect decision not to renew The CW's lucrative deal with Netflix in 2019. But now Nexstar is bringing in a different sort of dumb, looking at how The CW's shows have been surprisingly popular with older viewers and instead of giving those viewers more of what they clearly enjoyed, deciding they need more generic reality shows.