Penske/Variety Pimping the Golden Globes

The Golden Globes are now owned by media conglomerates Todd Boehly and Jay Penske. In June 2023, Penske and Boehly’s Eldridge Properties acquired all of the Globes’ assets, rights and properties from the HFPA.

Penske and Boehly also own Variety, THR, Deadline, and IndieWire, their aim has always been to monopolize film journalism. So, technically speaking, the film trades now own the Golden Globes.

It was inevitably going to happen, but conflicts of interest (and corruption) is starting to pop up. Puck’s Matt Belloni is reporting that Penske-owned Variety has been pitching studios on “a series of intimate, curated dinners” with Golden Globe voters. The trade is quite literally pimping the Globes for their Penske overlords.

According to a pitch deck that was forwarded around among the outraged awards marketers, for a low-low six figure price, a studio can get “a panel conversation” with contending talent followed by an “upscale dining experience with a guest list of 30-40 voters.” It’s all “in collaboration with the Golden Globes,” meaning that Variety, apparently a news organization, is now “pimping out its corporate sibling for money.”

This is a hot story that the trades would cover, if Penske didn’t own them all. Penske-owned THR, Deadline, Variety and IndieWire are ignoring all of this. Nobody will be reporting on it, except for independent journalists such as Belloni, myself, and a few others.

It gets worse. Belloni goes on to add that the Globes now charge $2,000 per movie to submit and $5,000 for an admin fee. As a bonus, if a a studio uploads more than 14 of their films on the Globes viewing portal then they are guaranteed preferential display on the platform. Obviously this advantages the major studios over the indie ones. Studios also have to pay Penske $1,000 to communicate with voters.

Penske took over The Golden Globes after numerous corruption scandals inflicted the awards organization, including the selling of access, which is exactly what’s going on here with Penske’s latest scheme.

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