The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the controversial organization behind the Golden Globe Awards, is methodically seeking support from key Hollywood constituencies — studios and networks, publicists and philanthropic causes associated with the entertainment industry — ahead of a 2023 return to NBC, possibly. Tuesday, January 10.
The past weeks, The Hollywood Reporter has learned, the leadership of the HFPAan organization made up of journalists and photographers for non-US media has pleaded with top executives at major studios and networks that the organization today doesn’t even resemble the organization that was at the center of a firestorm just before the 2021 Golden Globeswhen a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times revealed that the HFPA at the time included: zero black people among the then 87 members and had involved in unethical behavior and suspicious financial practices.
In the nearly one and a half years since then, the HFPA has indeed far-reaching reforms implemented – Amongst them, prohibit members from accepting gifts and removing a limit for new members, which made it possible to to add 21 new members, six of them black – with apparently more changes to come. (THR hears that the HFPA is about to add some journalists outside the Los Angeles area to its voting lists, although they may not be considered full members.)
But the situation is clouded by the fact that a significant number of HFPA members voted against the changes, while a few others expressed the sincerity and resigned. (HFPA members have since been pressured to sign NDAs.)
The HFPA also tries to navigate the sprawling community of publicists who serve as Hollywood’s gatekeepers to talent. After the Time expose, a large contingent of publicists said they would boycott the HFPA until it made significant changes. Representatives from the publicist group and the HFPA have had an ongoing dialogue ever since, with the former seeking progress updates from the latter, until last week, a publishing source says, the HFPA kept the radio silent. Around the same time, THR learned, the HFPA began reaching out to a handful of publicists — including: Larry AngrisaniSlate PRs Simon HallsSearchlight Melissa HollowayBlock-Korenbrot Public Relations’ Melody KorenbrotRogers & Cowan/PMKs Arnold Robinson and Kovert Creative’s Danica Smith – to serve on an HFPA “PR Advisory Committee.”
It’s unclear how the creation of the latter group will affect the HFPA’s dealings with the former, but several publicists say the situation points to a growing rift among those in their ranks who believe the HFPA still has a lot of work to do. (such as eliminating members whose journalistic credentials are lacking) and others who believe the time has come to move on and welcome an awards show that boosts their films and talent (the Globes broadcast is usually the top-rated awards show of the film awards season prior to the Oscars).
A high-level studio flack says: “We, like a number of other studios, feel that the HFPA has made significant progress and deserved a second chance. And we’re excited to meet and work with their new members. ”
The HFPA has sought to cultivate goodwill in the community by, even during this period of uncertainty about its future, large charitable contributions to a wide variety of industry-related causes. On Tuesday, it announced $4.5 million in new grants.
But it remains to be seen whether this will make a difference to NBC, which has been the HFPA’s broadcasting partner since 1996, but which declined to broadcast the ceremony in 2022, who said in a statement at the time: “We continue to believe that the HFPA is committed to meaningful reforms. However, changes of this magnitude take time and work, and we are convinced that the HFPA needs time to get it right.” The HFPA rubbed NBC and many others the wrong way by continuing with a ceremony on January 9th anyway – which ended up not being attended by any talent or broadcast in any way – and in March, Sunshine Sachs, the HFPA’s longtime PR agency, resignnext a D&I advisor and crisis PR advisor Outside.
Sources close to NBC indicate the network is still deliberating on whether or not to bring the Globes back in 2023, but it has plenty of reasons to do so — possibly 60 million. Under an agreement signed in 2018, NBCUniversal has committed to pay HFPA and Dick Clark Productions $60 million per year for the right to broadcast the ceremony through 2026. (MRC, the owner of DCP, is a co-parent of THR through a joint venture with Penske Media titled P-MRC.) Plus, live award shows, while they may not draw the kind of ratings they once had, still draw a larger audience than almost anything on TV except live sports, and NBC’s competitors each has at least one: the Grammys and Tonys air on CBS, and ABC airs the Oscars, while the Emmys rotate between the Big Four broadcast networks.
If NBC were willing and able to break free from its Globes deal, an interesting alternative to the network would be the controversy-free SAG Awards, which also recognizes both film and TV work, and is now actively looking for a new home. , having been dropped by TBS and TNT. But that seems unlikely.
THR learns that if NBC airs a Globes ceremony in 2023 (which would be the 80th of the Globes), it would likely do so on Tuesday, Jan. 10, rather than a Sunday, as was the custom prior to the pandemic. That’s because the first Sunday in January 2023 is New Year’s Day; the second is January 8, the last day of the NFL’s regular season, which conflicts with NBC Sunday Night Football; and the third is January 15, on which the Critics Choice Awards have already made their claim.
The HFPA did not respond to a request for comment. NBC declined to comment.