US:Striking Hollywood writers forced the cancellation of the annual Golden Globe Awards telecast yesterday after gaining support from movie and television actors who refused to appear on the show.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which stages the awards honouring the year's best film and TV performances, announced the decision yesterday in an e-mailed statement.
The programme was set to be broadcast on NBC on Sunday.
The decision is a victory for the Writers Guild of America, which convinced Hollywood stars to boycott the telecast.
Writers are in the 10th week of a strike against film and TV studios over pay for work used on the internet. The cancellation raises questions about the February 24th Oscars telecast by Walt Disney Co's ABC. "It's just a notch in their belt that they stopped the Golden Globes," said Norm Samnick, a New York-based entertainment attorney with Bryan Cave LP. "The bottom line is your strike will still be on."
The foreign writers' group said winners will be announced at a January 13th news conference in Beverly Hills, California. NBC will broadcast the news conference live, the network said in a separate e-mailed statement.
The writers, who walked off the job on November 5th, are trying to pressure studios to return to the bargaining table by seeking separate agreements with smaller production companies and by denying the Golden Globes a waiver to use writers and film clips for a televised show.
"The Golden Globes has always been a bellweather for the Oscars," said Brad Adgate, research director at New York-based advertising firm Horizon Media. "Typically that means who's got a chance of winning. This year there's another layer on that, who's going to show up?"
The guild has reached separate labour agreements with talk- show host David Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants, and with United Artists, the film studio led by actor Tom Cruise and his partner Paula Wagner. Letterman returned to the air with CBS on January 2nd with his writers, while Jay Leno returned to NBC on the same date without his writing staff.
The last round of talks between the guild and the studios' negotiating unit, the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers, broke down on December 7th. The Screen Actors Guild said last week that its members would honour picket lines at the Golden Globes. The cancellation will add to the strike's economic impact.
The Golden Globes generate $50 million to $70 million in local spending, according to Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Develop Corp. The Academy Awards ceremony adds about $130 million to the economy, he said.
The strike has cost the southern California economy $1.4 billion, according to Kyser. That includes $179.6 million in lost pay to writers and $309.6 million in lost wages to other unionised workers in the industry.
The figures are based on an estimate of employees' lost spending power and lower studio expenditures with small businesses such as caterers, he said. - (Bloomberg)