Deadline: Eight CBS Stations To Ditch CW And Go Independent This Fall

Story from Deadline:

The CW is about to lose eight important affiliates: the CBS owned and operated stations that are currently affiliated with the Nexstar-owned network will become independent in September.

The affected stations are WPSG Philadelphia, WUPA Atlanta, KBCW San Francisco, KSTW Seattle, WTOG Tampa-St. Petersburg, WKBD Detroit, KMAX Sacramento and WPCW Pittsburgh. These markets represent 13.9 percent of U.S. TV households.

This will give the CBS stations group a total of 14 CBS Television Network stations and 13 independent stations.

“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,” said Wendy McMahon, President and Co-Head, CBS News and Stations. “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.”

The change was expected. When Nexstar acquired the CW last year, CBS had the right to pull its affiliations, according to one source familiar with the deal. “It was part of the arrangement,” said the source.

Currently, there are 203 CW stations that cover 99.5 percent of U.S. households.

“Since our acquisition of The CW Network last October, we have known that Paramount Global might transition the network affiliations of eight of its company-owned stations later this year,” according to a statement from the statement from Nexstar Media Group. “We are prepared for this possibility and confident that The CW Network will continue reaching 100% of U.S. television households without interruption. Paramount’s decision affects a limited portion of The CW’s nationwide reach, and we have already received multiple expressions of interest from station groups hoping to deepen their relationship with The CW by aligning more of their stations with the network.”

Another sign that CBS was beginning to break away from Nexstar was when CW announced it would carry the LIV tourneys. Since CW affiliates are only contractually obligated to air primetime programming, all eight of the CBS-owned CW affiliates declined to air the weekend tourneys. So did the Weigel-owned CW affiliate WCIU in Chicago, and Tegna-owned CW stations like KFMB in San Diego and WCCT in Hartford-New Haven, CT.

In markets like Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Tampa and Hartford — where CBS and Weigel have those CW affiliates — other local stations and/or diginets will air LIV instead. A spokesman for CBS declined to comment at the time about the decision to keep LIV off of the group, though it was likely because of the network’s longstanding relationship with the PGA.

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