It has been announced that the controversial association of foreign journalists that founded the Golden Globe Awards will be disbanded as the Hollywood awards show is formally acquired by private investors including US billionaire Todd Boehly.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), a group of approximately one hundred entertainment writers with ties to international publications, has presented the Golden Globes to A-list film and television personalities for the past eight decades.
Last year, however, allegations of corruption, bigotry, and amateurism led to an industry-wide boycott of both the Golden Globes and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Awards, as well as calls for a comprehensive reform of the awards.
After corruption, intolerance, and amateurism charges, the Golden Globes and Hollywood Foreign Press Association were boycotted.
“Today marks a significant milestone in the evolution of the Golden Globes,” said Boehly, whose firm Eldridge partnered with Penske Media Corporation to facilitate the transaction.
According to a joint statement, the acquisition “will result in the dissolution of the HFPA and its membership.”
There was no given timeline for the dissolution of the HFPA. Current HFPA members will be offered salaried positions operating the new for-profit Globes, as previously announced by Boehly.
In recent years, the Golden Globes’ non-member voting body has grown and diversified beyond the original group. Currently, a mixture of HFPA members and entertainment writers from outside the HFPA select the victors.
Once the HFPA is disbanded, its resources will be used to establish a distinct organization dedicated to entertainment-related charity activity.
According to a letter from California’s attorney general seen by AFP, this will include at least $44 million of the $48 million the HFPA will receive from the sale of the Globes.
In the 1940s, foreign correspondents based in Los Angeles who covered the entertainment industry founded the Golden Globes.
Due to lucrative television agreements for broadcasting the star-studded ceremony, its organizers exerted immense power in Hollywood by the 1990s.
A Los Angeles Times exposé in 2021, however, revealed that the HFPA had no minority members. The following year, NBC pulled the show from the airwaves.
After reforms, the ceremony returned to television screens in January of this year, but ratings plummeted to a record low of 6.3 million viewers, and several prominent recipients did not attend.
There is currently no television agreement in place for the 2019 Golden Globes, which are scheduled for January 7.
Boehly, an American industrialist, is also the chairman of Premier League soccer club Chelsea FC.
His holding company, Eldridge, controls both the Golden Globes telecast producer, Dick Clark Productions, and a portion of the Beverly Hilton Hotel, which hosts the ceremony.
In addition, it is a minority proprietor of a number of Hollywood trade publications, including The Hollywood Reporter, and the independent film studio A24, whose recent award-winning films include Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Whale.
