Man the drama just never ends. As most of you now know, the Golden Globe ceremonies where cancelled this year due to complications with the current WGA strike and instead was set to be just a press conference announcing the winners of this years awards. NBC was still the exclusive carrier of the “press conference”.
But it seems that behind the scenes a lot of bad blood between NBC and the Hollywood Foreign Press (the people behind the Golden Globes) as built to the point that the Golden Globes has been stripped away from NBC and will now be an open even (like a real press conference) where any and all media outlets can attend and broadcast.
The Hollywood Reporter has this:
But sources said the HFPA and Dick Clark Prods., with whom the network has a contract, was incensed with what it perceived as a loss of creative control. It sought more influence over who would appear on the program. At the same time, a dispute brewed between Dick Clark and NBC over clips to be delivered for a “Dateline” show. Sources say the network had agreed to pick up all of Dick Clark’s preproduction costs for the show, an amount estimated at $1.25 million, in exchange for the clips. But Dick Clark said it was entitled to a separate fee for the graphics package as part of the three-hour block it was offering the network. The clips were never delivered and a check was never cut.
The dispute over the clips, however, was just a prelude to Friday’s fireworks. That’s when Dick Clark and the HFPA, still upset over creative control, asked for a fee — either below $1 million or at $1 million, depending on which side is estimating it — that NBC would pay for airing exclusively a Globes-branded telecast. (NBC normally pays about $5 million to air the Globes.)
Dick Clark acknowledged the fee request in a statement that read, in part, “NBC wanted to have an exclusive three-hour broadcast special disguised as a news conference that would bar all other media, and yet was unwilling to pay a nominal license fee.”
This might be for the best for all concerned. I really haven’t spoken to anyone that was planning on watching the Globes “press conference” anyway, and perhaps with the event being open to more media outlets it might get a little more attention than it was going to.
Still, even with the event now being open to all media, ABC, CBS and FOX have all said they aren’t going to carry the event and will just keep their regular Sunday shows instead. And with NBC being so upset, they may just drop it too… which would mean NONE of the major media companies will carry the event. It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out.

5 Comments, Comment or Ping
Kristina
Re
tar
ded.
This whole situation is one of the biggest clusterfucks I’ve ever witnessed. If they dick over the Oscars, I will be pissed beyond words. Yeah, the show is way too long and a bit pretentious, but as a film fan(and a fashionista), it’s my Super Bowl Sunday.
Jan 12th, 2008
Yeeles J Nerrad
Well, at least E! will have some good programming for a change.
Sandwiched between Girls Next Door and the Kardasians.
Jan 12th, 2008
D.M.
I wonder if the studios are at all trepidatious about the possibility of cancelling the Oscars, seeing as how the actors will not cross the picket line in defiance of the WGA strike? Will this development spur further negotiations between both sides or are the Oscars fucked? I want to see that show moreso than the Golden Globes.
Jan 12th, 2008
Yeeles J Nerrad
Well, NBC did carry it. While I’m sure there will be a post about the winners on MB on Monday…sometime…I will confess to watching fifteen minutes in. It was “alright” at first, but I soon lost intrest.
But y’know something? There was ONE moment in those fifteen minutes which I wished the Int’l friends could have heard. If Gio heard it, I hope he chimes in as well.
When France’s Marion Cotillard won for best actress in a musical or comedy for her remarkable personification of singer Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose the guy from Access Hollywood (Billy Bush) mentioned (in jest) that Rose was neither a musical or a comedy but was “a bio-pic with music in it”. In other words, an actress who gave a musical or comedy performance lost out to an actress in a dramatic role.
Come to think of it, that’s when I stopped watching.
At least someone indirectly -or unwittingly- pointed out the Golden Globes own bullshit.
Jan 13th, 2008
Meiran
I hated the Golden Globes telecast. The people they got have spent the last five years nitpicking and talking about speculation and who they thought would win and who didn’t. They were terrible hosts. They say “Well, the Golden Globe goes to Bob Smith. That’s funny, everybody thought Steve Jones was a shoo-in, I’m surprised he didn’t win, his movie was great…”
Um, who cares? The time for those speculation is on the gossip shows after the awards are given out, not during the awards themselves.
Jan 14th, 2008
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