Character meals are a great way for Disney to rake in the bucks. I doubt they'd close one. It is almost pure profit!!! Food is cheap, the employees are not paid well and Disney doesn't have to rent the space. They make a handsome profit i am sure.
Well, here's the thing: The character meal at Liberty Tree Tavern is scheduled to go away, and I think the one at Garden Grill is also ending (don't quote me on that one, however). Character meals ARE popular, people love them so much, they don't want to leave...which means that the restaurants can't turn tables over as fast, which means fewer customers served and less money raked in.
But the flip side to that argument is: Would the restaurants with character meals be as popular if they got rid of the characters? I'd argue (sadly) that LTT won't have a problem staying full, especially if it continues the all-you-can-eat-family-style food they serve at dinner, even without the characters. And by not having the characters, they'll be able to serve more people as the guests will be less apt to hang around if there's nothing to see. But Akerhus? No offense to the good people of Norway OR the Norway pavilion, but I can't imagine as many people flocking to that restaurant were it not for the meet-and-greets. I'm coming from ignorance here, as I've never gone, but perusing the menus that I've seen, I've never has a desire to go, either. As my baby gets older, I'm sure she'll want to see princesses and we'll wind up there, but it's not floating my particular boat. And I can't imagine the demand for Akershus being as strong without characters. Without them, Akershus might compete with Morocco as the easiest restaurant to get into without ADRs.
My preference is that WDW would consider MORE character meals, especially in restaurants in the various resorts as opposed to the parks, even if it's just character lunches. Get some people out of the parks during the busiest times, they'll more or less rotate with some of the people who DO stay in the parks through lunch, and then split late afternoon when the people who left for lunch come back. Families get more opportunities to see characters without waiting on hour-long lines in Toontown, the crowds in the parks lighten up a bit as crowds are not only distributed throughout the parks but throughout the entire WDW complex. But since people already paid for their admissions to the parks, the parks don't lose THAT money (the one "potential negative" I see would be that the people who go to character lunches, in the resorts might opt to shop in the resorts' shops instead of back in the parks - less merchandise, sure, but also fewer guests, which could be a more pleasant shopping experience. It improves the bottom line at the resorts, but at the expense of the theme park's stores).
The other thing I can imagine WDW might consider would be hard start AND END times for character meals, much like the dinner shows (or more appropriately, your lunch periods in school). If dinners are serve from 5 to 10 pm, then every hour a whole new group of guests arrive to eat, and 50 minutes later, they're ushered out so the tables can be quickly cleaned and prepared for the next wave of guests. Not as "magical" by a long shot, but I can imagine them at least trying it as it guarantees a maximum amount of guests being served.