The Golden Globes could return, according to some reports. Or reports of the Globes’ return could be premature, a trial balloon launched by those with the stakes high on that return.
But while things seem to be up in the air, can we ask a couple of questions?
For starters: How will bringing back the quintessential high-visibility, low-pressure awards show benefit Hollywood?
(High visibility because the ratings are pretty good and the stars have, at least in the past, come forward; low pressure because all those stars know that it doesn’t really matter if several dozen members of the Foreign Press Association of Hollywood give that crude statue to someone else.)
Also: As the HFPA seeks reform, are those moves doomed by the organization’s new for-profit structure, which is automatically less transparent and fraught with more conflicts of interest than the old structure?
The background behind those questions is well known by now. A series of stories in the Los Angeles Times in 2021 forced the industry to acknowledge and act on things it already knew: that the HFPA was a small, insular organization with no black members, a history of asking embarrassing questions at its press conference, and a variety of ethical lapses. Advertisers announced a boycott, NBC said it would not broadcast the ceremony in 2022, and the HFPA promised sweeping reforms.
Those reforms have included new ethics rules, outside oversight, and the admission of 21 new members, six of whom were black. Most recently, members approved a plan to sell their stake in the Golden Globes to Eldridge Industries, a company owned by interim HFPA CEO Todd Boehly, who also owns Dick Clark Productions and whose companies have a stake in the Beverly Hilton (where the show takes place) and in the trade publications of Hollywood Variety and the Hollywood Reporter (as well as having a partnership with Penske Media, which owns Deadline and IndieWire).
Since that deal was made, NBC hasn’t said whether it will actually bring back the Globes, while two prominent publicists have questioned the HFPA about whether the organization is actually making changes. (Others, including most of the public relations firms that led the boycott of HFPA screenings and press conferences, declined to comment.)
So what would be the payoff for a resurrected Golden Globes, after this January’s untelevised, starless ceremony? The Globes have been hailed as a key step on the road to the Academy Awards, but Oscar voters have never needed the HFPA to bring worthy films to their attention. (Though Globe voters can be criticized, they have at times made smarter decisions than their more esteemed colleagues at the Academy: “The Social Network” versus “The King’s Speech,” for example, or, arguably, ” The power of the Dog” on “CODA”).
The Globes aren’t necessary as an awards season indicator, either: Next January, the American Film Institute and BAFTA Los Angeles scheduled their big awards events for the Critics Choice Awards ahead of knowing if and when the Globes would return. That’s not to say the CCA can be “the new Globes,” since it’s not even broadcast live in the Pacific time zone, but it does suggest that the other players in awards season aren’t at all dependent on what the HFPA does. . . (Full disclosure: I am a voting member of the Critics’ Choice Association.)
The Globes certainly make money for people: for Dick Clark Productions and the HFPA, which split NBC’s $60 million payment for broadcast rights; for hotels and airlines and stylists and caterers and screening rooms and advertisers who serve or work with those who come to the show; and for the Hollywood exchanges (from the ones Boehly owns to TheWrap, which he doesn’t own), all of whom are likely to get a few more ad dollars than they would in an off season from the Globes.
And the Globes make money for HFPA members, who have a lot of clout because of their TV show, and one could argue (as do those members) for film-oriented, charitable, and educational organizations that receive grants from the HFPA. HFPA. But this latter group is now tricky, because the new HFPA will have its charitable arm separate from the Globes, which provide the vast majority of the organization’s money.
An organization that must show Hollywood how it has changed is transitioning from a nonprofit, where annual financial reports must be made public, to a private company, where the only information that gets out is what is published or leaked. From one that has to show us where the money goes to one that doesn’t.
And one where the guy who owns it and pays the members about $75,000 a year also has a stake in the company that puts on the show and where it’s held and the media that covers it. “The risk of monolopy,” veteran publicist Cassandra Butcher called it when she confronted HFPA president Helen Hoehne during a panel at the Martha’s Vineyard Black Film Festival.
The move provoked an immediate reaction from Fipresci, the international association of film critics whose members had been invited to become unpaid Golden Globes voters (unpaid members of the HFPA) to increase the size and diversity of the corps of critics. voters. “With the HFPA we had agreed to mediate for a journalistic organization, not for a commercial company,” the Fipresci board told its members. “It is entirely up to our members if they wish to continue their contribution as voters.”
Maybe NBC will agree to the new HFPA, and maybe enough advertisers, studios and networks will find enough profit in the plan to bring the Globes back to join it. But the new structure is clearly throwing up roadblocks, and at this point, a less transparent and more profit-oriented prize show isn’t exactly a good look.
