NBC execs privately regret waiting to cancel next year's Golden Globes after boycott threats

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times reports that "several (NBC) executives now privately acknowledge they made several public relations miscalculations. Instead of taking a leadership role, the venerable broadcaster’s hand ultimately was forced by prominent producers Shonda Rhimes and Ava DuVernay, A-list actors Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson, the Time’s Up organization, a coalition of publicists and rival streaming giants Netflix and Amazon Studios. Facing an embarrassing boycott of next year’s awards show by much of the industry, NBC announced Monday that it was pulling the plug on the 2022 Golden Globes telecast to give the HFPA, which was formed in 1943, time to carry out a series of planned reforms." As The Times notes, NBC's stance was complicated by its eight-year, $500-million TV rights deal for the Globes that it signed in 2018 and the fact its contract is actually with Dick Clark Productions, and not the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. “NBC should have been leading the charge to demand reform and improvement,” said Shawna Kidman, a communication professor at UC San Diego. “But NBC lost the narrative. They allowed these new companies, like Netflix and Amazon, to come in and take a stand for diversity and change and it seemed like the old media companies, like NBC, didn’t care about diversity and change — even if that’s not true.”