There are few things Hollywood loves more than an awards season comeback narrative: Think Ke Huy Quan and Brendan Fraser at last year’s Oscars completing professional resurrections from zero to hero amid cheers and tears.
Sunday’s Golden Globes will offer a fresh twist on this old story: This time, it’s the show itself that’s looking for a second chance.
Two years ago, the Globes – a bustling precursor on the road to the Academy Awards – were mired in a potentially fatal public relations crisis. After a 2021 Times investigation exposed the lack of diversity at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which had long given out the awards, and raised concerns about its ethics and financial practices, Hollywood collectively rejected the Globes. Tom Cruise returned his trophies and NBC took the show off the air for a year. Many believed that the time had come to roll out the red carpet for what had been billed for decades as “Hollywood’s party of the year.”
But the industry couldn’t abandon the Globes (and the marketing tool they provide) so easily. Now, after a series of sweeping reforms that have reshaped the awards inside and out, dissolving the HFPA and turning the organization into a for-profit company, the Golden Globes have found a new home on CBS, and organizers They say the party is much over again. At a time when the film industry is still grappling with deep existential anxieties — with the domestic box office down more than $2 billion last year from pre-pandemic levels — for many in Hollywood the impetus to watch beyond the Globes’ difficult past is simply too strong. resist.
“I think everyone has accepted it,” says Ricky Kirshner, who serves as executive producer of the broadcast along with Glenn Weiss. “A lot of the questions being asked about this issue with the HFPA are, for lack of a better term, within baseball. People watching at home are tuning in to watch their favorite stars, TV shows and movies, and we’re here to honor them and have a good time. “I don’t think people back home really care about what happened in the past right now.”
An awards consultant, who is not authorized to speak on the record, adds: “I had people asking me, ‘Wait, have the Golden Globes already happened?’ the year they didn’t happen. “No one outside of Hollywood knows anything about this controversy.”
Viewers can expect a few changes to this year’s Globes, which will be simulcast on Paramount+, all designed to help attract a broader audience at a time when awards shows across the board have struggled with declining ratings. .
The categories have been expanded from five to six nominees to add additional star power to the show, and two new awards have been introduced: one for stand-up comedy and another for “Film and Box Office Achievement.” The latter aims to help include crowd-pleasing films like “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (and give more love to “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer”). The trophy itself has been redesigned, symbolizing the attempted reboot.
The Globes’ new blockbuster category has been met with some skepticism; In 2018, the film academy backtracked on a plan to introduce a similar “best popular film” category after widespread criticism that it was mere pandering. “No one cares,” says one veteran awards consultant, who declined to speak on the record because of the sensitivity of the topic. “’Box office achievement’? So you’re saying it made the most money? What a thing. It won’t go to ‘Oppenheimer’ or ‘John Wick’. He will go to ‘Barbie’ because he made more money. There is no suspense. Tricks like that are not going to increase ratings.”
The group behind the awards has also been revamped since billionaire investor Todd Boehly completed his acquisition of the Globes last year. Historically, the awards were voted on by fewer than 100 HFPA members, who were often notoriously receptive to being courted by studios. This year’s nominees were chosen by a new voting body made up of 300 journalists from 75 countries, more than half of whom identify as ethnically or culturally diverse and all of them under the auspices of the newly formed Globe Association. of Gold, they are governed. by a code of conduct and restrictions on receiving gifts.
Still, some dissidents within the organization and outside observers have looked askance at the $75,000 salaries paid to former HFPA members, saying the practice elevates the influence of money within the voting pool.
While previous presenters like Ricky Gervais and last year’s emcee Jerrod Carmichael frequently made jokes at the expense of the often-mocked awards, this year’s host, comedian Jo Koy, is expected to adopt a kinder approach. “A lot of his comedy is family-based, so I don’t know if it’s going to be as mean-spirited as you expect,” Kirshner says.
Indeed, as the industry comes off a painful year marked by a bitter double whammy from actors and writers, the show’s creative team is determined to build on the show’s reputation for offering a relaxed, boozy evening that doesn’t take herself as seriously as the Oscar. (To further lift spirits, winners and presenters will receive a gift bag valued at $500,000.)
“We don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak,” says Weiss, who will have 72 cameras covering the Beverly Hilton ballroom to create an immersive experience for the viewer. “We really wanted this to make you feel like you’re at the party when you’re watching.”
Still, the road back to the Globes has been bumpy and the brand’s value, at least on paper, has dropped significantly.
Amid the fallout from the Times investigation, NBC negotiated a new deal to air the 2023 ceremony for a much more modest fee than the $60 million the network paid in its previous deal. The network believed that the HFPA had made a good faith effort to address the issues raised about its membership and practices.
While NBCUniversal executives were privately pleased with last year’s broadcast, the show reached an all-time low of 6.25 million viewers, according to Nielsen data, about a third of the 19 million who watched it in 2019. Ratings for awards shows in general have been on a downward spiral in recent years, as younger viewers prefer to watch clips on social media and YouTube rather than sit through a three-hour broadcast.
As they searched for a new home for the awards last year, Boehly and Jay Penske, whose Penske Media Corp. shares ownership of the Globes, explored partnering with a streaming service to try to attract more younger viewers. “I want to be free to talk to other streaming platforms where the audiences are,” Boehly told The Times in late 2022. “Because I’m not convinced that in three years the average age of a streaming network will not exceed the age of the audience we want to access.”
Netflix, which will host the Screen Actors Guild Awards for the first time in February, received a bid for the Globes, as did Amazon, but the streaming giants rejected the show, believing a deal now would be perceived as reclaiming a property. damaged. rejected by the networks.
At the same time, live events now attract advertisers looking to reach viewers in real time, making the Globes, even with their baggage, a relatively attractive proposition for networks.
NBCUniversal made a bid in March to hold the 2024 ceremony that was rejected by the new owners. CBS turned down the Globes twice before agreeing to a one-year deal that carries no financial risk for the network. According to several people familiar with the deal, the licensing fee is less than $10 million plus a percentage of advertising revenue earned by CBS. (The network has its own history with the Globes, having aired it for two years in the early 1980s before dropping it after a surprise nomination for actress Pia Zadora raised ethical questions.)
A CBS representative declined to comment on the terms of the new deal.
While financial improvement for 2024 may be limited, a successful evening could set the Globes up for a more substantial bid in the future. CBS, which also airs the Tonys, Grammys and Emmys (the latter in rotation with the other broadcast networks), will have a brief window of exclusivity to negotiate for next year’s Globes, according to sources familiar with the deal. But Boehly and Penske will be able to shop around again if they think they can get a better deal.
CBS is doing everything it can to make the telecast a success, preempting its Sunday night “60 Minutes” stalwart so that the Globes can benefit from a direct introduction to the audience from the afternoon’s NFL game. “We have a great intro and CBS will encourage people to stay tuned to the show throughout the games,” Weiss says. “That is a blessing and we appreciate it.”
In the end, however, it’s the stars that make an awards show come to life, and that’s always been especially true of the Globes. And despite all the problems that have plagued the awards over the years, that bond has proven to be lasting, helping the show survive numerous scandals that could have brought it down.
In 2018, then-HFPA President Meher Tatna acknowledged that complicated history on the occasion of the show’s 75th anniversary: “They took us off the air and then they took us off again. There were entanglements with the FCC. We were outcasts one year and the next things were back to normal. …There has been good and bad press. We’re still here.”
Whatever lingering doubts celebrities and publicists may have about the Globes, they’re likely to take a backseat during Sunday’s show as the industry comes together and collectively jumps back into the pool and embraces the next chapter of the beleaguered awards.
“We have a really high percentage of yes responses in terms of RSVPs,” Weiss says. “If you check out our list of nominees, you’ll see some big names coming to this party and we’re bringing them right into your living rooms.”
“People may not have liked the HFPA, but they legitimately liked the program,” says one awards consultant. “It was a fun night, something you’ll never hear anyone say about the Oscars.”
Times staff writer Meg James and columnist Glenn Whipp contributed to this report.
