Breaking: CBS-Owned Affiliates in 8 Major Markets Will Not Renew Deals with The CW

The Streamable has learned that a collection of eight CW affiliates around the country that are owned and operated by CBS will not renew their affiliation agreements and will become independent stations starting on Sept. 1, 2023. Paramount Global owns CBS while Nexstar became the primary owner of The CW last August. This development is latest in a number of recent confrontations between the media companies.

The impacted channels are in the Atlanta, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle, and Tampa regions. These changes mean that the CBS stations group owns and operates 14 CBS affiliates and 13 independent channels. The company is apparently planning to make these stations outlets that feature additional Paramount content.

“We look forward to reimagining these stations as independents while leveraging the considerable value of their prime-time real estate in each of the markets,” CBS News and Stations president and CEO Wendy McMahon said in a statement. “It’s an exciting time to look at new opportunities to add local programming, including live sports, and shows from across the Paramount Global brands. We are also grateful to have been part of The CW for 17 memorable years and wish our partners at Nexstar continued success.”

Which CBS-Owned CW Affiliates Will Become Independent This Fall?

Before Nexstar took control of 75% of The CW network last year, the network was run as a joint project between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery. Much of the content on the channel was produced by the two studios and then licensed to other streaming services, primarily Netflix. However, with Nexstar’s acquisition, the channel is pivoting away from scripted content, making the continued investment in the network not as attractive for either Paramount or WBD; both companies still maintain 12.5% ownership of The CW.

Things have been complicated for both CBS and Nexstar as of late. Disagreements between the companies have been ongoing but became public-facing when The CW became the broadcast home of the controversial LIV Golf Tour. Due to CBS’s longstanding broadcast partnership with the PGA Tour, the company declined to air the golf events on their CW affiliates. In order to live up to its claim that LIV would be broadcast in every CW market, Nexstar shifted the telecasts to other channels or diginets in the regions where CBS chose to broadcast other content.

In January, CBS also had a partial blackout of its local affiliates on live TV streaming service Fubo due to a disagreement with its affiliate board. The board refused to approve a carriage deal that Paramount had negotiated because it felt that the company was not working in the best interests of the local channels. That led to the local CBS channels being unavailable to Fubo subscribers for six weeks. CBS filled in the gaps by providing a national feed in the meantime. Nexstar was one of the channel owners on the affiliate board to turn down the initial deal.