The Globes, long an ungodly mess, have seemingly pulled themselves together.
The ceremony has new long-term TV partners: CBS and the Paramount+ streaming service have agreed to carry the Globes until 2029, replacing NBC, which dumped the awards group after ethics, diversity and finance scandals. The Golden Globe voting pool has grown to 334 from about 80, with roughly 40 voters identifying as Black, up from zero in 2021. After last year’s train wreck of a show — Jo Koy, hired to host at the last minute, bombed — organizers have been determined to do better. They hired this year’s host, Nikki Glaser, five months in advance.
Icky contretemps continue behind the scenes, however.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which invented the Globes and turned it into a major annual event, agreed in June 2023 to dissolve itself and sell its assets to Eldridge Industries and Dick Clark Productions. The foreign press association had little choice: The Globes were on life support following a celebrity publicist boycott and record-low viewership.
More than a dozen former H.F.P.A. members are now pushing California officials to rescind tentative approval of the sale to Eldridge and Dick Clark. The disgruntled members cite conflicts of interest and fraud. “New information has come to our attention that raises serious questions about the validity of the purchase agreement,” they said in a Sept. 20 letter to California’s attorney general. “The board and the members were intentionally misled.”
On Thursday, a spokesman for the attorney general said the matter was under review. Eldridge declined to comment, but a spokeswoman for Dick Clark, which is part of Penske Media, did not respond to a query.
Separately, studios have been upset about rising Globes costs. The H.F.P.A. was ostensibly a nonprofit. The new owners overtly run the Globes as a business.
Tickets to Sunday’s ceremony cost $2,000 each, double what the H.F.P.A. charged. If studios want to send “for your consideration” emails to Globes members during voting, the price is $1,000 per blast. It used to be free.
Another entirely new cost: Studios must pay $5,000 to submit a film for prize consideration, at least if they want the film to be viewable on a streaming site for voters.
