Newsmax Drops Solo Lobbyist After Four Years, Shifts to Bigger K Street Operation

The LDA Termination

Newsmax Media Inc. ended its lobbying relationship with Robert Barry Crowe, a solo-practitioner lobbyist who had handled the company's TV broadcasting advocacy since 2021. The LDA termination, filed for Q4 2025 with a termination date of December 30, 2024, closes out a nearly four-year engagement during which Crowe earned $1,150,000 from the conservative media company — consistently billing $30,000 per quarter on "matters relating to TV broadcasting."

But Newsmax didn't walk away from Washington. It appears to have walked toward it — with more firepower.

---

Why It Matters

A Small Client Lost for a Small Operation

Robert Barry Crowe operated as an individual lobbyist, not a large firm. The Newsmax lobbying registration represented a steady $120,000-per-year revenue stream. Current lobbying disclosure data does not show other active clients for Crowe, which means this LDA lobbying disclosure termination could represent a meaningful hit to his practice.

Newsmax Kept Spending — and Spending More

The termination of Crowe didn't coincide with Newsmax pulling back on lobbying. Quite the opposite. Over the past year, Newsmax Media's lobbying disclosures show the company spent $490,000 across multiple firms — roughly four times what it was paying Crowe alone.

Here's where the money went:

| Firm | 2025 Spend | Status |
|------|-----------|--------|
| Squire Patton Boggs | $250,000 | Active |
| TeleMedia Policy Corp. | $120,000 | Active |
| Robert Barry Crowe | $120,000 | Terminated |
| Live Oak Strategies | $40,000 | Terminated |
| Capitol Resources LLC | $10,000 | Terminated |
| Bockorny Group Inc. | $0 | New (Q4 2025) |

Squire Patton Boggs — one of the largest lobbying operations on K Street — is now the company's top-billed firm, with a team of four lobbyists working the account: John Heddens Kingston, Dominic Braithwaite, Thomas S. Andrews, and Michael D. Hawthorne Jr. Their work has expanded well beyond what Crowe was handling, covering not just communications and broadcasting issues but also defense policy and media/publishing matters.

TeleMedia Policy Corp., led by lobbyist Justin Weaver Lilley, has been working specifically on carriage of independent cable television programmers — a core business concern for Newsmax.

Meanwhile, Newsmax also terminated contracts with Live Oak Strategies and Capitol Resources LLC during 2025, and brought on Bockorny Group in Q4 with no reported spending yet.

---

Broader Context

The Policy Landscape Has Gotten More Complicated, Not Less

The issues that Robert Barry Crowe, as a registered lobbyist, was working on for Newsmax — broadly described as "TV broadcasting matters" in every quarterly lobbying disclosure — have intensified considerably.

Cable carriage disputes remain central to Newsmax's business. The company fought a public battle with DirecTV in early 2023 over distribution, with CEO Christopher Ruddy calling the dispute "a blatant act of political discrimination." That fight was eventually resolved, but carriage access for Newsmax remains an ongoing concern, as reflected in TeleMedia Policy Corp.'s continued quarterly filings on the subject.

The FCC's broadcast ownership cap has emerged as a major new front. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has been considering changes to the 39% national TV household ownership cap — a move that could facilitate a proposed Nexstar-Tegna merger. Newsmax CEO Ruddy has publicly opposed lifting the cap, warning it would allow a handful of corporations to dominate television station ownership. More than 40 Republican members of Congress reportedly urged the FCC to maintain the cap in February 2026. Ruddy has stated he is "prepared to litigate" if the cap is raised.

Newsmax's antitrust lawsuit against Fox News, filed in September 2025, alleges Fox used bundling agreements with cable distributors to suppress Newsmax's carriage. That litigation is ongoing in federal court.

No Hearing Mentions, No Specific Legislation

A search of congressional hearing records from the past year turned up no instances of Newsmax Media being mentioned in hearings or testimony. The lobbying disclosure filings from Crowe's engagement also listed no specific legislation. The work appears to have been focused on regulatory advocacy and general broadcasting policy rather than particular bills.

Congressional communications referencing Newsmax during this period were limited to members announcing media appearances on the network — standard fare for a cable news outlet.

A Transformed Company

The Newsmax that hired Crowe in 2021 was a private company. The Newsmax that let him go is a publicly traded one. The company completed a $75 million IPO on March 31, 2025, listing on the NYSE under the ticker NMAX. Shares surged dramatically in early trading. As of early 2026, the company's market cap sits around $706 million, with annualized revenue in the $170–180 million range. The company remains unprofitable, reporting approximately $96.5 million in net losses for the first nine months of 2025 — driven in part by a $67 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems and a $40 million settlement with Smartmatic.

---

The LDA Termination's Bottom Line

What Squire Patton Boggs Brings

The firm now leading Newsmax's lobbying effort, Squire Patton Boggs, is a global law and lobbying firm with one of the largest government relations practices in Washington. Its team working the Newsmax account has been handling issues that go beyond traditional broadcasting — including Pentagon media filtering policies and the FY2026 NDAA, as disclosed in their Q2 and Q3 2025 filings.

Among the named lobbyists, John Heddens Kingston — who has appeared on every quarterly Squire Patton Boggs filing for Newsmax — is a former U.S. Representative who served Georgia's 1st congressional district from 1993 to 2007 and sat on the House Appropriations Committee. That kind of profile brings a different level of access than a solo practitioner.

No congressional staffer experience records were found in the database for any of the lobbyists currently working on Newsmax's account, though the database may not capture all prior government service.

What TeleMedia Policy Corp. Brings

TeleMedia Policy Corp., through lobbyist Justin Weaver Lilley, is handling the granular cable carriage work — the issue closest to what Crowe was doing. Lilley has been filing consistently on "carriage of independent cable television programmers" every quarter, indicating specialized expertise in the distribution fights that are existential for Newsmax's television business.

The picture that emerges from the lobbying disclosure data: Newsmax didn't abandon its Washington presence. It restructured it — replacing a single lobbyist billing $120,000 a year with a multi-firm operation spending four times that amount, spread across firms with different specialties and, in at least one case, a former member of Congress on the team.