Legendary publicity house BWR is closing shop.
The firm’s parent company BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe) informed the staff on Wednesday that it was closing the company, which has offices in Los Angeles and New York City, according to multiple sources.
“We had a feeling something was happening in the last few weeks,” a source told Variety. BWR’s several divisions include talent, television and film, music and corporate, lifestyle and branding. The firm is expected to shutter by the end of May.
BCW confirmed the move in a statement emailed to Variety, writing, “BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe) is committed to continually examining our business to ensure we are best structured to serve our clients and marketplace needs. Due to a variety of considerations, and the tremendous impact COVID-19 has had on the entertainment industry, we are combining our BWR brand into BCW Entertainment, effective immediately.”
The statement continues: “While several of our BWR colleagues remain with BCW in Los Angeles and New York to oversee key client business, sadly we have had to say goodbye to other members of the BWR team. We are incredibly grateful to them for all of their contributions to BWR and the BCW Group, and we will be providing support to them during their transition.”
BWR’s current talent client roster includes Adam Sandler, Zoe Saldana, Garret Hedlund, Anna Kendrick, Anthony Anderson and Padma Lakshmi, Connie Britton, Jamie Chung, Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Analeigh Tipton.
Multiple sources tell Variety that a number of BWR’s longtime publicists will be setting up a new company.
BWR was started in 1987 by Paul Baker, Larry Winokur and Nanci Ryder.
The news comes after significant changes to BWR’s roster in recent years as former publicists left the company to form competitors, including Scenario PR, Imprint PR, and Vision PR.