‘Nashville’ season 5: Will Chase and Aubrey Peeples exit ahead of CMT move

When it was first announced that “Nashville” was going to be moving to CMT after four years on ABC, our first reaction was of course excitement! However, at the same time it was fairly easy to draw the conclusion that in the process, we were going to be losing some people.

Now that we’ve said that, let’s go ahead and get to the latest report. According to TVLine, Will Chase and Aubrey Peeples are not going to be returning as Luke and Layla. It’s certainly a bummer for these two actors, we also understand it for a number of reasons. For one, we figure that ABC Studios and Lionsgate (who produce the series together) would have to make some cuts in order to make the show work financially. Lower ratings is one of the reasons, after all, why ABC did not keep the show for a fifth season.

Moving beyond this, Luke and Layla probably did not have the biggest storylines on the show, though we are probably more bummed about the latter since there were a few different ways that her character could have gone.

With these exits in mind, we definitely imagine that we’re going to get a chance to meet some new faces at some point over the next few months. With that in mind, stay tuned! We’ll give you some other updates and castings as soon as we start to find out about them. The same goes for an eventual premiere date for the country-music series on its new, ever-appropriate network.