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Time Warner Cable Hires Two Lobbying Firms; Already Paid Nearly $4 Million in Lobbying Fees So Far This Year

Phillip Dampier October 15, 2013 Public Policy & Gov't No Comments

twc logoTime Warner Cable has added two new lobbying firms, despite running up nearly $4 million in lobbying expenses during the first half of 2013, to advocate a hands-off policy on broadband and changes in how television stations get compensated from cable providers after a month-long dispute with CBS helped fuel subscriber losses.

The Legal Times blog reports Time Warner Cable has hired Dentons and Edwards Wildman Palmer to advocate the company’s positions on broadband deployment, copyright reform, privacy matters, retransmission consent, and the reauthorization of the Satellite TV Extension and Localism Act. Provisions of that legislation have given television stations and broadcast networks leverage to persuade pay television providers to meet their terms on higher compensation in return for permission to carry those signals on the cable or satellite lineup.

Nelson

Nelson

In reviewing disclosures released by the clerk of the House of Representatives obtained by Stop the Cap!, Time Warner Cable will benefit from Washington’s revolving door, using lobbyists that either used to work inside offices of members of Congress or have been directly involved in writing or influencing legislation for paying clients:

Valerie Nelson, a senior managing director at Dentons, served as director of Member Services for Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Todd Bertoson, also a senior managing director at Dentons, spent nearly six years on the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, working on all aspects of the committee’s agenda, including issues involving the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Bertoson

Bertoson

Seth A. Davidson, a lobbyist from Edwards Wildman Palmer, has played an active role, including drafting legislation and witness testimony, in most legislative matters affecting the communications industry over the past three decades, including the 1984 and 1992 Cable Acts, the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995, the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the Satellite Home Viewer Act of 1989 and each of its subsequent renewals. His involvement in legislative matters of interest to his clients is so pervasive, he was singled out by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2004 for his contributions (on behalf of his clients) in the drafting of the Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act.

The Legal Times notes Time Warner Cable has spent $3.8 million on federal lobbying during the first half of this year, according to congressional records. For its advocacy efforts, the company used its own staffers, as well as lobbyists from firms that included Capitol Tax Partners; Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock; and The Raben Group.

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