News Corp. hired Glover Park Group to negotiate the possible legislative consequences of its carriage dispute with Time Warner Cable, lobbying disclosure records show.
Glover Park's client registration for News Corp., which owns Fox, was filed earlier this week, but effective since Dec. 21, 2009. The registration notes the firm would be handling "legislative monitoring and outreach related to carriage dispute."
News Corp. and Time Warner spent the weeks before the New Year locked in contentious negotiations over the per-subscriber price the cable company would pay in exchange for the right to carry News Corp.'s stations. Happily for subscribers, they reached a deal in time to avoid a blackout. Read a New York Times story about it here.
But clearly, News Corp. was preparing to deal with any legislative fallout. This is not the first time the company has turned to Glover Park. In 2005, Glover Park worked for News Corp. on a lobbying and public relations campaign that challenged changes in the way Nielsen Media Research measured television ratings.
The lobbying team on the recent registration includes Susan Brophy, the managing director of the firm's legislative affairs practice. Brophy was previously senior vice president at the Time Warner Global Public Policy Office in Washington. She also worked as deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of legislative affairs in the Clinton administration. Brophy and Glover Park Managing Director Joel Johnson could not immediately be reached for comment.
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