NRA-TV Shutsdown New Programming

The National Rifle Association has shut down production at NRATV, reports The NYTimes.

The NRA on Tuesday also severed all business with its estranged advertising firm, Ackerman McQueen, which operates NRA-TV, the N.R.A.’s live broadcasting media arm, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Times.

While NRA-TV may continue to air past content, its live broadcasting will end and its on-air personalities — Ackerman employees including Dana Loesch — will no longer be the public faces of the NRA. It remained unclear whether the N.R.A. might try to hire some of those employees, but there was no indication it was negotiating to do so.

The move comes amid a flurry of lawsuits and increasing acrimony that surfaced after two prominent NRA board members first criticized NRA-TV in an article in The Times in March. The separation had become inevitable: The two sides said last month that they were ending their three-decade-plus partnership.

“Many members expressed concern about the messaging on NRATV becoming too far removed from our core mission: defending the Second Amendment,” Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A.’s longtime chief executive, wrote in a message to members that was expected to be sent out by Wednesday. “So, after careful consideration, I am announcing that starting today, we are undergoing a significant change in our communications strategy. We are no longer airing ‘live TV’ programming.”