From NYMag, “Why NBC Will Keep Airing the Golden Globes Even Though Its Shows Aren’t Nominated”:
This Sunday, NBC will spend north of $21 million for the privilege of airing what in many ways amounts to a very long commercial for Netflix, HBO, and a handful of other subscription-based TV services. Not literally, of course: The promotion of OPP (other people’s programming) will come via the network’s telecast of the 73rd annual Golden Globe Awards, a star-studded event that honors both movies and TV shows. Unfortunately for NBC, the kinds of shows the Hollywood Foreign Press Association favors these days generally don’t air on broadcast networks such as the Peacock, or even basic cable channels. Instead, of the 56 TV nominations this year, more than half — 30 — run on pay networks, either linear (Showtime, HBO, Starz) or digital (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu). The five major ad-supported broadcast networks combined this year generated just 11 nominations, with NBC itself getting exactly zero shout-outs from the HFPA. Still, despite being shut out by its own awards show, NBC will probably be quite eager to renew its deal for the Globes before it expires in 2018. Here’s why:
The Globes is still one of TV’s biggest annual events — and thus a big moneymaker…
The right kind of viewers watch the Globes.
While networks these days are happy to get any kind of viewer to tune-in live (rather than via DVR), the big audience that watches the Globes is particularly valuable to NBC since it’s comprised of an unusually large number of high-income viewers (read: people with money to spend)…Even if they’re not nominated, NBC stars and shows will be front and center Sunday.
While most of NBC’s ad time will be sold for top dollar to outside advertisers, the network will also reserve several minutes of commercial slots to promote its own shows… As part of the network’s rights deal with the HFPA, NBC also gets to book a certain number of its own stars as presenters…
Much more at the link. Who’s watching tonight?
Mike J
I won’t watch until they do something about their concussion problem.
Schlemazel
@Mike J:
I’d watch if they ever did anything worth watching
debbie
I watch the Golden Globes out of habit, but Downton Abbey starts in 45 minutes…
EriktheRed
To Whom it May Concern,
Fuck the Golden Globes and every other MSM circle-jerk “award” show.
That is all.
? Martin
Let’s give awards to people who earn millions so they’ll know they’re important.
We need award shows for people who succeed despite life raining shit sandwiches on them. And no, I’m not talking about the Steelers.
cokane
money
Cacti
Awards shows have never really been my thing, apart from a mild interest in the Oscars.
Hungry Joe
The Golden Globe voters belong to the Foreign Press Association, or something like that. There are only about 150 members. I have up-close experience with them, and a bigger bunch of sycophants, glassy-eyed star fuckers, and on-the-take hacks I’ve never seen in my life.
Aside from that, they’re very nice.
Felonius Monk
WTFC =(WhoTheF*ckCares)
debbie
Wolf Hall just won, so it isn’t total crap.
JPL
@debbie: Good.
AliceBlue
I can take the GG’s or leave them; we’re not watching this year because Mr. AliceBlue can’t stand Ricky Gervais.
Gravenstone
@AliceBlue: Friend of mine of Facebook shared a post from Gervais where he was talking about getting up so he could go “offend some humourless c*nts”. Apparently I qualify, not because I am offended by his shit, but because he’s an unfunny pretentious cock.
Brachiator
I’ve been popping in and out of the GGs. I guess I will take a look at the Amazon show, Mozart in the Jungle.
I got no problem with award shows. It’s a party, and we get to take a little peek, or choose not to watch.
PaulW
It doesn’t hurt to root for a show or movie you like to win any award.
That said, MAD MAX FURY ROAD WINS BEST PICTURE OR WE RIOT. WITNESS IT.
Brachiator
Interesting bit of desperation. I didn’t realize that NBC had zero GG nominations. But it is also interesting to see the steady rise of Internet shows, like Mozart in the Jungle, and the continuing dominance of cable shows. Broadcast tv is quickly becoming an also ran. Good to see the BBC and Wolf Hall getting a win.
Also, with the decline of physical newspapers and magazines, broadcast tv is one of the last places that you can get wide publicity for movies, which adds more caginess to having the Globes on NBC.
Shana
I only watch, or more accurately, catch up online, to look at the dresses. Some really nice ones, some just awful. Like Cate Blanchett’s acting just fine, but lord the woman has no dress sense. And I love Bernadette Peters’ dress, but it should have been a smudge less tight around the waist and hips. Tight does not make you look thinner.
ETA: Gulliana Rancic is a walking skeleton. Yeesh.
Anne Laurie
@Shana: I’m cheating, by following NYMag‘s live blog, mostly so I know what to look for at Go Fug Yourself tomorrow.
There’s some disasters up at the slide show, but the one I’m regretting so far is Melissa McCarthy — she usually looks good, but the shot here screams ‘Hefty trash bag repurposed’, Maybe it’s better from other angles?
Shana
@Anne Laurie: I don’t think so. A lovely woman, but not a good dress.
jon
I love the Golden Globes for the opening, the Tony Awards for the opening, and the Oscars for the death reel and the trainwrecks that happen when the songs are performed. Other than that, it’s mostly crap.
I love crap, but there’s usually some better crap elsewhere.
Shana
@jon: Yeah, I don’t see that many movies anymore, most music today leaves me cold, but the Tony’s this year will be terrific. Hamilton will crush and I’ll be so happy about that.
daryljfontaine
Scenes from inside a Trump rally
From the sound of it, he’s courting the “responds to word salad” vote previously sewn up by La Palin.
D
Mike in NC
I’d like to hug Katy Perry’s golden globes.
Steeplejack (phone)
Rerun of Sherlock: The Abominable Bride starting in a minute on PBS.
AdamK
I watched the first couple of episodes of Hannibal on Amazon Prime. So far it’s gross, trite, unrealistic and generally lousy. I’ve heard good things about it so I’m wondering whether I need to be patient and wait til it improves, or whether the people who praised it are idiots.
Bobby Thomson
I really hate red carpet events and how they turn women into the worst junior high mean girls imaginable. If I were ever invited to one of these things I would be tempted to dress very subversively and then tell anyone who gave me guff about it to go fuck themselves. (And I kind of like black tie events.)
Joan Rivers was an unfunny asshole and is not someone to be emulated.
Steeplejack (phone)
What is the fifth “major ad-supported broadcast network” after ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox?
FlipYrWhig
@Steeplejack (phone): CW
Mnemosyne
Denzel Washington is giving a great acceptance speech for his lifetime achievement award, and Tom Hanks gave him a great introduction. And Mrs. Denzel made me laugh out loud with their repartee.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Wasn’t she a friend of Trump’s? I see a lot of her latter day schtick in his, when she would just make retching noises instead of a joke. His word salads are littered with random noises of disgust or shock that his howler monkeys seem to greatly enjoy.
Mnemosyne
Ricky Gervais did piss Mel Gibson off — again — and managed to say something that even shocked Alan Cummings. So it’s not all bad.
Anne Laurie
New (political) post up top, if you’re bored with this one…
redshirt
@PaulW: Witness!
NotMax
The Golden Globes are, ever have been and ever shall be the red-headed stepchild of awards shows.
And deservedly so.
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
They can sometimes support good TV shows before the more establishment organizations do. Shows like “Mad Men” and “Orange Is The New Black” won Golden Globes long before the Emmys took any notice of them.
Their movie nominations are bizarre, though. The Martian a comedy? Huh?
Steeplejack (phone)
@FlipYrWhig:
“Major”? Didn’t see that coming.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Nothing to do with the GG, but thought you would like to know that I have a friend who is beside herself because she tweeted something that LMM re-tweeted earlier today. No, I don’t know what it was about, but here we go, two degrees of separation :-)
David Koch
Has anyone seen “The Reveant” – is it any good?
Looks like the Oscar is going to come down to Leo vs Damon. Leo sure seems popular.
David Koch
@Mnemosyne: I was watching Hardball at the end of the year and he had on a couple of movie critics give their top ten lists and one of them described the movie as a comedy. The other said, while it was funny, it was a drama. So there is a split of opinion.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@David Koch: I’ve seen comments that range from lukewarm to positive. I think it looks interesting. I didn’t bother slogging through MoDo’s column today because the headline suggests she’s using it as her would-be clever pop culture hook to, if twitter can be believed, echo Trump on HRC and BHO.
Mike J
@David Koch:
It’s popular on the internet to whine that he never won one. Of course Cary Grant never won one either.
David Koch
@NotMax: It’s still influential with Oscar voters. The thing is how does anyone watch all these movies. Most of them come out at the end of the year, and then they only have 6 weeks to see about 24 to 30 touted films (not including the foreign films, the documentaries, the animations) and there are 6000 members of the academy so a lot of them just watch the GGlobes and use it to inform their selection.
It’s kind of like how the low information voters vote for president based on watching the evening news.
David Koch
@Mike J: off the top of my head I can’t think of a performance he’s turned in that was oscar worthy. but my comment was related to the enthusiastic standing ovation he received from the golden globe audience that was chock full of oscar voters.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Hungry Joe: SCTV’s The Sammy Maudlin Show was very imprinted on my receptive mind before I’d ever heard of the GGs. It was great training.
@Mnemosyne: I was more ready for Arrested Development than anyone I know, so the point of the GGs being ahead of the curve is important. Then again Pia Zadora has one.
David Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: just judging from the commercials, it looks like a bad version of Jeremiah Johnson.
NotMax
@David Koch
No secret that Academy voters are deluged with screener discs.
And all 6000 (or so) don’t have a vote in every category
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ThresherK (GPad): Didn’t Pia Zadora kind of make the GG’s by (basically) bribing all the judges to win a statue and getting a fairly obscure award show a lot of press it had never had before? I can’t even remember the name of the movie she was in, I just remember she flamed out and then showed up in a John Waters film a few years later and everybody saying “Remember her?”
@David Koch: Yeah, it definitely invites comparison.
Tenar Darell
I started watching during the red-carpet coverage because I didn’t want to miss the opening, but muted that part pretty quick because the questions were so fnucking bad. I get that it’s hard to be original in those situations, that’s why you ask what are you wearing! Oh, & Gervais was only funny in that he was mocking the self-importance of awards like this, otherwise he played his usual dickish self. For some reason I left it on though. It made good background noise while I was reading a story & popping over to check Twitter.
@Mnemosyne: Just had a commercial at like 11:15 during the local news for the blu-ray of The Martian w/ GG Winner in the thing. Must be some kind of If –> Then statement at the station, if we win, then play this one.
David Koch
@Mike in NC:
Hopefully Obama will declare them national monuments before leaving office.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I thought the bribery was from her father. Don’t worry; she’ll never be a flameout until the last copy of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is destroyed, or removed from YouTube.
I can’t resist dropping this punchline:
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@David Koch: He (I assume we’re talking about DeCaprio) was great in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”, but that was a long time ago.
Cheers,
Scott.
ThresherK (GPad)
@ThresherK (GPad): Okay, I’m spreading disinformation. Her wealthy benefactor was her husband.
Mnemosyne
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
He was also really good in “Catch Me If You Can,” “The Aviator,” and “The Departed.” He has been really good and really consistent for years now. I’m just not interested in “The Revenant.”
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Ditto for performances in The Basketball Diaries and Gangs of New York.
David Koch
@Mnemosyne: I like Leo because of his activism, but I thought he was terrible in Aviator and Departed. Though I agree he was great in Diaries and Gilbert Grape.
Feathers
I miss the old Golden Globes, back before they were on network TV. They still serve alcohol, so it’s a little less uptight than most award shows, but there used to be fairly blatant drunkenness, especially by the end of the show.
eyelessgame
David Bowie just died.
The world is just a huge ball of suck.
Spike
NBC is owned by Comcast, which also owns a huge chunk of internet distribution. in the United States It also owns a chunk of Hulu, and gets a cut of Netflix, which pays them extra to provide not-shitty service to Netflix customers. So, Comcast has an interest in promoting TV watching over both streamed and cable channels. While NBC is a flagship property, promoting it as a specific channel is of lesser importance.