The HFPA is dead and the Golden Globes are now a for-profit organization

In a bit of a showbiz shocker today, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association—a group that was once accused of being a “cartel” that existed to just to get fancy gifts and access to celebrities for its members under the pretense of running the Golden Globes—has announced that it is dissolving itself and relaunching the Golden Globes as a for-profit organization. In other words, the HFPA will no longer spend all of its time insisting that there’s something philanthropic about the Golden Globes and will instead just openly embrace what has always seemed like the goal: making money.

This comes from the Los Angeles Times, which says this restructuring was the brainchild of “billionaire businessman” Todd Boehly, whose private equity firm, Eldridge Industries, has acquired all of the Golden Globes assets and will be bringing the group’s 95 members—aside from any who choose to take a staggering $225,000 severance—on as employees. The LA Times story says that employees will get a $75,000 salary and that their job responsibilities will include “screening films and TV series submitted for Golden Globe consideration,” voting on the awards, and “creating content” for the Golden Globes website. It’s sort of like working in digital media, except most of their jobs will involve voting on the Golden Globes and also it seems like they’re being paid pretty well.

But perhaps the crucial bit is that, unlike members of the TV or film academies that choose winners for the Emmys and Oscars, Globes members will essentially be paid voters with a financial interest in what their awards show is doing. Boehly argues in the LA Times piece that this is not a big deal, and that there’s no rule anywhere that “a paid journalist can’t also vote on something,” but the story also quotes a former member as saying that this takes away the “last shred of legitimacy” for the group, adding that it’s now “opaque, even less trustworthy.”

This deal will also put the Golden Globes brand entirely under the control of Penske Media, a company that also has stakes in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, TVLine, Billboard, IndieWire, and Rolling Stone, all of which are organizations that could conceivably publish something about the Globes (to say nothing of the fact that Eldrdige also owns a stake in production company A24, a studio that has made movies that could be nominated for Golden Globes).

None of that necessarily means anything, but it does indicate that what’s happening behind the scenes of the Golden Globes is at least as twisty (if not more twisty) than it was before all of this. But, like the unnamed former member said, they’re now explicitly doing it for profit. Basically, if you thought the HFPA and Globes had issues before, they’re now owned by a billionaire and his private equity firm. We challenge you to name one thing that got worse when billionaires got involved!