The Golden Globes Event Penske's 3 Trades Buried. Why?
Plus: the 'Joker 2' journalism crisis!
Welcome to the Jamboree, my weekly series of quick(ish) takes on the industry’s passing parade.
Penske’s Turkish Delight
Three years ago, when Eldridge Industries boss Todd Boehly laid out his plan to purchase the Golden Globes, and turn a beaten-up non-profit into a for-profit entity (i.e. not beholden to any public reporting), the emphasis was on restoring integrity to the embattled awards group. As he told the L.A. Times:
“I am not interested in having any influence because I think, frankly, that would damage the integrity of the brand. And of course, my No. 1 goal is to grow the brand.”
Still, Boehly acknowledges that despite all of the organization’s efforts, skeptics remain.
“I have nightmares where it doesn’t work too, you know? I get it, you can’t convince all of the people all of the time of anything,” he said. “We know we have to add value and we know that we have to be part of the solution.”
He added, “We understand our place in the ecosystem and we want to make sure we achieve that — to be a professional organization with longevity.”
Almost a year and a half later, in December 2022, he lauded his new model of transparency that would accomplish that goal of being a professional organization bringing accountability to the previously opaque workings of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. “How do you make people accountable?” Boehly told LAT. “Well, you transition the organization from a not-for-profit with no accountability and bad governance to an organization where there is employee-based accountability.”
At that time, Jay Penske, Boehly’s erstwhile partner in other ventures, was not mentioned.
A month later, though, Eldridge executed a complicated transaction in which a company named Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture and subsidiary of Penske Media, also acquired Dick Clark Productions (the Globes’ longtime producer). As the Times helpfully explained when the Globes deal was finally approved in June 2023, “Dick Clark Productions and its partners will oversee the awards telecast and look for other ways to extend the Globes around the world.”
Somehow all the transparency promises worked with all parties, including the state Attorney General’s office which approved the plan for the Globes to become a for-profit entity. (Having the owner of all the media covering the event buried deep within a complex deal structure might have helped speed that along too.)
So how’s all that accountability and restored trust and good governance looking today? Last week I wrote about how the Variety-Golden Globes dinner series, ready for purchase to reach voters (whoever they are, the list has never been released), had been called off after I wrote about it the first time.
Now, I got an even newer glimpse at trust and accountability, Boehly-Penske style (BPS).