The Golden Globe Awards was canceled last year following a scandal exposed by the Los Angeles Times. It came back, but it didn’t return for a Sunday showing on NBC. Kim Masters and Matt Belloni, founding partner of Puck News, look at how the Globes did, and who will likely pick it up next year.
This segment has been edited for length and clarity.
Did the Globes do a good enough job?
Kim Masters: [The Golden Globes] wasn't broadcast at all last year. This year, they're trying to bring it back. They did have to be on Tuesday night on NBC, which is strange, and we didn't have the usual after parties that had been the norm.
The question is, did they do a good enough job? It wasn't so clear in the early days who would show up and who would be grateful and so forth. They got a pretty good turnout. Steven Spielberg came and thanked everybody, and they had, of course, Eddie Murphy. [He] was there for his tribute, and a lot of stars. They did pretty well in that regard. But is it enough?
Matt Belloni: I think it is. I don't think this show will ultimately end up back on NBC. NBC has other issues not having anything to do with the scandal. Now, NBC has an extra week of football on Sunday nights, so they don't really have anywhere to put the Globes if they want to continue with that early January purge.
NBC got out of its long-term deal with the Globes based on the scandal. They did a one off to bring it back on a Tuesday night, they reduced the license fee from about $60 million they were paying a year to the HFPA and Dick Clark Productions. It was about $40 million this year, and now this show goes out on the open market.
This was not a disaster
Belloni: This was not a disaster. Yes, the Globe got called out a number of times. Not a disaster is actually a win here. First of all, the big win is that they actually got themselves back on television, and they got to prove themselves. Stars did show up, and it was a decent show. There [were] some nice moments with winners. Jerrod Carmichael did lay into them, which I think everybody expected him to do. But someone will pick up this show.
Was the elephant in the room fully addressed?
Masters: I will note that Jerrod Carmichael, addressed first of all the elephants in the room, and he also talked about getting paid the money to do it.
He did not address the allegations about the Hollywood Foreign Press, which it's that these people, in many cases, were not really what you'd call press exactly; that the publicists were after them [because] they often asked very weird, inappropriate questions of talent on uninformed questions; And they were getting flown around and taking gifts. That is not something Jerrod Carmichael addressed.
Are there still lingering issues?
Belloni: But a lot of the reforms of the past year have eliminated a lot of that stuff. The publicists that held up the Golden Globes got a lot of concessions from the fact that the red carpet had segregated all the celebrities off this time, and the HFPA people were not on the red carpet at the same time as the stars. The press conferences have largely gone away, and there's been a lot of changes of the board and the rules for gifts and all of that stuff.
So, you know, that was not really addressed on the show, the HFPA President did come up and say “We've had momentous change,” but the host didn't really focus on that part.
A streamer could pick up the Globes
Belloni: Going forward that narrative is going to be part of the sales pitch. They're [going] out to the market now and [saying], “Listen, we've cleaned up our house, and we did a show. Proved we could do it. Proved stars will come back.”
I don't know whether another network, [a] traditional TV network will pick it up, or whether it'll be a Netflix-style streamer. The SAG Awards just announced that they're going to Netflix in 2024 and beyond, so maybe that takes Netflix off the table for the Globes or maybe not. Amazon Prime could be a home. All of these streamers are looking for more live events because they now have advertising tiers, so [it] wouldn't surprise me if a streamer picked up the Globes.
Will streamers pay without ratings?
Masters: I have to wonder about the economics. They were getting all of this money from NBC. Even $40 million is a lot of money. Do the streamers want to pay a big number when we have [not] seen the ratings for these types of shows to climb?
Belloni: We have not seen the ratings, but everybody expects they're going to be down from the 2020 show, which actually had 18 million viewers, thanks to a lead-in from football. Not going to be anywhere near that.
Masters: That's something they'll have to reckon with, too.