• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, August 29, 2019

Ad agency Ackerman McQueen has shuttered its Alexandria, Virginia office and laid off 50 employees — apparently fallout from a parting of the ways with the National Rifle Association. 

Well, for most agencies, there will be some pain when ties are severed with a client that has been paying $40 million in annual fees. 

Word of the agency’s cuts was reported by the DailyBeast, which covered a hearing in the legal dispute between the parties in an Alexandria court on Wednesday.

An agency spokesman confirmed that it had reported the moves to the court in an earlier filing. 

The relationship imploded earlier this year amid accusations and recriminations from both sides, including breach of contract. 

The hearing also touched on NRATV, the video channel that Ackerman McQueen managed for the gun-rights group until it was shuttered earlier this year. Some had accused the channel of airing content that ventured into right-wing positions that went well beyond the NRA’s core mission.

At the hearing, a letter was produced from an NRA official calling the channel an “abject failure.”