With zero chance of the WGA strike being settled by 1.13, Variety‘s Anne Thompson is reporting that “word from within the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is that one possible scenario is for the Globes to proceed without the live NBC telecast.”

Uhhmm…is there another option? Faced with a choice between staging the Golden Globes without the TV broadcast and cancelling the whole shebang (due to nominees declining to cross WGA picket lines and writers unable to contribute quips and podium repartee), it would be pretty damn surprising if the HFPA chose the latter option.
Cut out the NBC broadcast and ” the show could go on,” Thompson reasons, “with celebrities attending and moving on to the all-important after-parties at the Beverly Hilton” — which the studios are booking and planning, she hears. You’re presumably hearing this also, Bill Higgins? Thompson adds, however, that “so far NBC is going forward with plans to telecast the show live.”
There’s one upside to the Golden Globes not being broadcast. The individually scripted, sure-to-be-awkward podium patter will only be heard live by the Golden Globe attendees and not the worldwide viewing audience, so the shock or “gulp” or embarassment factor will be limited to those present at the Beverly Hills Hilton ballroom and those reading online and trade press accounts as it happens.
The downside is that those of us depending on e-mailed and text-message bulletins from the ballroom for news of the winners won’t have anything to write about in terms of color, observations or what-have-you.
Thompson writes that “in retrospect, it would have been smarter for the HFPA to approach the WGA themselves much earlier and request a waiver (as Film Independent did for the Indie Spirits Awards), rather than going through Dick Clark Productions and NBC. Thus the angry WGA struck back at a major network by withholding the waiver.
“If the show is not televised, NBC will lose the revenue it would have generated via advertising (the Globes show earns strong ratings), and the Globes will lose the money they would have been paid. But at this point it is much more important to the HFPA (which has enough cash in its coffers to miss one year’s telecast) for the Globes show to go on with celebrities walking down that red carpet (even with no writers to pen the presentation speeches) to present and accept awards than for them to face the possibility that most stars will not cross an active picket line.”