Golden Globe Awards To Go Forward Without NBC Broadcast Of The Ceremony

The old adage “the show must go on” is being trumpeted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which is pushing ahead with its Golden Globe Awards production despite having NBC announce it would not broadcast the event in early 2022.

What Happened: Deadline cited an unnamed source who declared the HFPA “plans to recognize the performances of 2021 to celebrate the great work of the industry this past year at the 79th Annual Golden Globes.”

The organization has also alerted the Hollywood studios with guidance on eligibility requirements for the next awards competition, although a date for the presentation of the awards has yet to be scheduled.

NBC, which is a Comcast CMCSA subsidiary, signed a contract in 2018 for exclusive broadcast rights to the award telecast through 2026. However, in June the network stated it would not broadcast the 2022 event after a Los Angeles Times report that the organization, an 87-member group of Hollywood-based international journalists, had no Black members.

The HFPA’s reputation was further tarnished by the absence of several prominent Black-themed films from its Best Picture competition and by comments from HFPA president Philip Berk that Black Lives Matter was a "hate group." Berk resigned after his remarks became public.

In the subsequent months, the HFPA expanded its membership by 21 writers, including Black journalists, and added three members to its board of directors to oversee diversity initiatives.

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What Happens Next: The Golden Globes have a wobbly history within the film award circuit, with multiple scandals involving influence peddling to secure top prizes; Most outrageously in 1982 when hotelier Meshulam Riklis flew HFPA members to his Las Vegas resort to help gain the New Star of the Year Award for his starlet wife Pia Zadora’s performance in the egregious “Butterfly.”

The Golden Globes carried on without any telecast between 1969 and 1972, while the ceremony ran from 1973 to 1977 on the relatively limited-reach network of Metromedia stations. In 2008, the HFPA dropped the annual ceremony and announced the award winners during a press conference when a writers’ strike shut down Hollywood productions.

NBC did not commit to telecasting the awards again in 2023, only noting in a statement that it was “hopeful we will be in a position to air the show in January 2023” if the HFPA followed through on its commitment to internal reforms.

Photo: Hollywood Foreign Press Association.