Golden Globes mess gets even messier
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced on Friday that NBC would no longer have the exclusive rights to broadcast Sunday's Golden Globes press conference and that the event would be open to all media. This latest change of plans will be a boon to cable nets like E!, CNN, and TV Guide Channel, which can now air the press conference live. The Writers Guild of America, which some suspected would still picket the press conference, announced that it will not protest the event now.
The Globes ceremony was scrapped earlier this week when the Screen Actors Guild vowed to boycott the show because the Writers Guild of America planned to picket the event. After NBC decided to turn the event into an NBC News sponsored press conference, Dick Clark Productions, which was contracted to produce the event for NBC on behalf of the HFPA, backed out. NBC News had planned to air the one-hour press conference, with hosting help from Access Hollywood anchors Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell, following a two-hour Dateline special.
But the HFPA, according to one insider familiar with the talks, had growing concerns over how the event was turning into a promotional ploy for NBC's Access Hollywood. Dick Clark Prods. wasn't happy either. According to this insider, NBC's 11th-hour decision to turn the Globes into a press conference was irksome to Dick Clark Prods. because the production company had been led to believe that the network would bow out of the telecast completely.
Instead, NBC continued to say the show would go on, which forced Dick Clark Prods. to incur more costs for a televised ceremony that was ultimately not to be. The insider says Dick Clark Prods. was not only trying to recoup money it lost in pre-production of the ceremony, but it was upset about the two-hour Dateline special that is set to precede the Globe press conference. "NBC wanted to have an exclusive, three-hour broadcast disguised as a news conference," Dick Clark Prods. declared in a statement. "The HFPA and Dick Clark Prods. felt this arrangement was unfair." That's when the production company stepped back in and requested a million dollar-plus licensing fee — what its spokesman deemed "a nominal license fee" — even though it was no longer producing the event. NBC declined. So Dick Clark Prods. and the HFPA decided to open the Globes press conference to all media.
It's unclear if this will all get heated enough to lead to some sort of legal action. One NBC source hints the network "will pursue all available legal options" for losses in excess of $10 million because Dick Clark Prods. and the HFPA withdrew the network's exclusivity. NBC pays well north of $4 million to air the annual Globes each year.
In the meantime, the HFPA has called on entertainment show anchors such as Showbiz Tonight's Brooke Anderson, Extra's Dayna Devon, ET's Mary Hart, Inside Edition's Jim Moret, E!'s Giuliana Rancic, and The Insider's Lara Spencer to help HFPA President Jorge Camara announce this year's recipients. Remarkably, NBC will stick with its plans to have Bush and O'Dell host a special telecast, taped in a different location than the Beverly Hilton, where the press conference will be held.
Comments