Golden Globes will not be livestreamed Sunday night

Josh Rottenberg
·2 min read
BEVERLY HILLS, CA - DECEMBER 10, 2015 - Preparations for announcement at the 73rd annual Golden Globe Awards nominations in Beverly Hills Thursday morning December 10, 2015. 2446352_et_1210_golden_globe_nominations_ALS (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
The 79th annual Golden Globes awards show won't be televised or streamed this year. (Los Angeles Times)

If you're wondering how to watch this Sunday's untelevised Golden Globes ceremony — well, you can't.

On Thursday, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., which hands out the awards, announced that this year's ceremony — which was pulled off NBC after months of controversy sparked by a Times investigation — will not be available to watch on any platform.

"This year's event is going to be a private event and will not be live-streamed," the Globes posted on its official Twitter account. "We will be providing real-time updates on winners on the Golden Globes website and our social media."

Still struggling to get back in Hollywood's good graces after enacting a series of reforms, the HFPA announced earlier this week that this year's ceremony, to be held at its regular home in the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton, would have no audience or host.

Despite being widely shunned by stars and studios, the group will hand out its usual film and television awards, minus the Cecil B. DeMille or Carol Burnett awards honorees for lifetime achievement.

In the absence of the usual glitz and glamour, it will use the occasion to highlight its own philanthropy work, showcasing a number of grantees during the ceremony, and its recently forged five-year partnership with the NAACP to promote greater inclusion in the film industry and entertainment journalism.

In recent days, as plans for this year's Globes finally began to come into focus, some speculated that the HFPA's multimillion-dollar contract with NBC could present an obstacle to a live-stream.

But according to a source at NBC who was not authorized to speak publicly, the network did not stand in way of the HFPA streaming its live event.

While the HFPA was determined to name Globe winners as it has for the last 78 years, the decision to forgo even a live-streamed event marks a stunning collapse for an awards show that had long been billed as "Hollywood's Party of the Year" and that, prior to the pandemic, had regularly drawn some 18 million viewers.

Times staff writer Stacy Perman contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.