If you were wondering why you haven’t heard about the American Music Awards, here’s the reason there’s been silence.
There aren’t any.
Usually the AMAs would come in November. But this year, the November 19th date has gone to the Billboard Awards.
And get this: two months out, no one knows how the BBMAs will even be shown to the public. No network deal has been announced/
I’m told the BBMAs may be a virtual show, with clips and pre-taped acceptances. It could very well be a streaming event and not on TV.
What happened to the AMAs? Dick Clark Productions, which produces them, was bought by the same company that owns Billboard magazine (and also Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline.com, Rolling Stone, and Women’s Wear Daily). So the survival of the AMAs collapsed on a branding issue. It was more important to emphasize the Billboard name.
Prior to this all happening, the BBMAs were on in the spring. It could be, I am told, they would trade positions and the AMAs would take that spot. But as it stands now, there’s no plan for them at all.
An insider points out that with the MTV VMA ratings this past Sunday — fewer than 1 million people watched across several channels — there may not be a financial place for the AMAs anyway.
Dick Clark Productions has a bigger headache right now. They still haven’t made a deal for the return of the Golden Globes. That awards show’s contract with NBC ended in controversy over membership– they had no Black members. They missed year because of it. Then NBC allowed them back for a year, and the ratings were miserable.
If NBC doesn’t take the Globes back, where could they go? Maybe Fox is the answer. ABC can’t do it because of the Oscars. CBS has the Tonys, Grammys and the Kennedy Center Honors. (They also have a bad history with the Globes pre-NBC.)
The Globes could go to Netflix or Amazon Prime, where the heat would be off. But the Globes also have the problem that they will be announced a week before a huge Hollywood weekend this January. In a space of a few days over Martin Luther King weekend, the Critics Choice, the Emmys, the AFI luncheon, and the Oscars Governor Awards will all happen. That first weekend in January for the Globes has been siloed. If the strikes are over, the stars will likely concentrate on the Big Weekend. The Globes may have trouble attracting an A list crowd in the audience.
In the meantime. RIP AMAs. They were always kind of shady deal anyway, the lesser stepsister of the Grammys.
