Globes At Risk As Strike Heats Up
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association had hoped last-minute negotiations with the Writers Guild of America would allow the Golden Globes show to go on. But the guild announced yesterday afternoon that striking writers still intend to picket along the red carpet.
''The WGA has great respect and admiration for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but we are engaged in a crucial struggle that will protect our income and intellectual property rights for generations to come,'' it said in a statement. ''We will continue to do everything in our power to bring industry negotiations to a fair conclusion.''
Jorge Camara, president of the HFPA, said in a statement earlier Wednesday that the organization was negotiating with the guild to reach an ''an interim agreement'' that would ''ultimately permit the Golden Globe Awards to be broadcast as scheduled, without picket lines.''
Twenty million people watched last year's ceremony on NBC. The network had no comment Wednesday.
Some Hollywood observers have theorized that without scripts and celebrities, awards shows might have to return to the relatively private affairs they were before television rather than risk embarrassment. Yet the organizations behind the Oscars and Globes are heavily dependent on the tens of millions of dollars their broadcasts bring in from network licensing deals, which may force them to televise their shows anyway.
