Hello Gang, and welcome to another Thursday, which means another installment of Paulie’s Perspective, here on placetobenation.com. A place where I can rant and rave about everything and anything that’s entertainment.
This week let’s talk about NBC’s decision to cancel The Golden Globes Awards. Well, to be more precise, they are not cancelling it, they are just not airing it. Does this mean another channel or platform can air it? Yep. Will they? Who knows.
The Oscars had horribly low ratings, and other awards show have not faired well in this Covid climate, so not airing it is not an out of left field decision. However, besides dismal live event ratings, there is another factor in play here, which I think gave NBC an easy way out.
The HFPA – Hollywood Foreign Press Association – is the committee or the board, which makes up The Golden Globes. They are the voters, they are the organizers, they are The Golden Globes. The HFPA has been under some scrutiny for some time, mostly by Americans for basically two things. Transparency of voting, and lack of diversity amongst their group.
A LA Times piece in February revealed that the HFPA has not a single black journalist among it’s 87 members. HFPA also requires members to reside in Southern California, and was only eligible to “print” journalists. Meaning websites, podcasts, blogs, YouTube’ers and the like were never eligible to be part of the HFPA.
Seeing all this, and finally knowing all this, Hollywood has seemingly taken a stand. Tom Cruise sent back all 3 of his Golden Globe trophies. (Way to go Tom!) Netflix stopped “activities” with the HFPA, as did Amazon, and then, WarnerMedia joined in, and that’s when Hollywood took notice.
I think now that print media is almost dead – Hollywood wants HFPA to notice, recognize and give weight to other forms of journalism that are just as valid these days as print. It used to be newspapers and magazines were the standard, now things are going the other way, and newspapers are going digital, and digital forms are becoming valid and it’s not all trashy, fluffy gossip either, like it used to be with Perez Hilton and the like.
Non-print media is not all gossip and TMZ, as it used to be. NYTimes, Hollywood Reporter, Variety all have a strong online presence, and all are just as valid as their print versions.
As for the lack of diversity – I think it’s a bonus package for this fight, something that every single company can feel good about and get behind without any backlash. So they are using that artillery too. Just not for blacks, but all ethnicities should be welcomed and included.
So, with all this pushing happening, and rightfully so, HFPA has preposed a policy to add “at least 20 new members in 2021, with a specific focus on recruiting Black members and a goal of increasing membership by 50% over the next 18 months.” Also to “eliminate requirements that members must reside in Southern California, and expand eligibility to any qualified journalist living in the US who works for a foreign outlet, and are opened to journalists who work in media beyond print.”
So HFPA has addressed all the issues on paper, and while they do that, since the ratings will be dismal anyway, NBC has passed on airing the celebration for this year.
I am very happy for this push for change – I think it is very necessary to take a big conglomerate like this and update it’s policies and practices to reflect the times we are in. So we shall see what happens. Hopefully all works out for the best.
Write to me anytime – paul.bernardo@me.com
See ya next Thurs! – paulie.
