Golden Globes "are now damaged goods": Can the award show survive after NBC canceled next year's ceremony?

Variety

NBC's decision on Monday to cancel the 2022 Golden Globes broadcast caught many inside NBC by surprise because it was announced publicly before the news was widely shared internally, reports Variety's Michael Schneider. "After 25 years as the HFPA’s TV partner, NBC has leverage when it comes to making sure the HFPA commits to real change," says Schneider. "The Globes were a blip on the winter awards calendar, averaging around 3 million viewers a year, when the show moved to the network in 1996 and turned into a juggernaut. But the Globes are now damaged goods, and the HFPA would be hard-pressed to find a home beyond NBC for the telecast following months of reports about the org’s financial impropriety and its tone-deaf approach to a lack of diverse representation (including an enrollment with no Black members). The small and insular nature of the organization has been widely criticized as part of the problem. At the very least, NBCU would like to see the HFPA double its ranks plus one — which would allow the new members to outweigh the number of its returning membership roster. Others, like Netflix, would like to see that number dramatically expand to 300. At present, membership totals 87. By last weekend, Netflix, Amazon and WarnerMedia (which includes HBO) had drawn a line in the sand and announced plans to boycott the Globes and the HFPA until reforms are implemented. It became clear that without three of the top winners of Globes over the past few years, there would be no show. Throw in A-list stars like Tom Cruise returning their trophies, and it dawned on NBCU execs that any attempt to rush into a 2022 show would kill the Globes for good."

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• SAG Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards can easily fill the Golden Globes void: "The HFPA has long been granted legitimacy it never really earned—both as a faulty Oscars precursor and an organization with glaring ethical and diversity issues that haven’t exactly popped up overnight," says Miles Surrey. "If the latest controversy and a one-year NBC broadcasting hiatus is the Golden Globes’ death knell, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has only themselves to blame. As for the rest of Hollywood: In retrospect, the industry should be ashamed for just how long it humored them."
• Emily in Paris' nominations and I May Destroy You snubbing paved the way for this year's Globes backlash