It’s hard to imagine the Golden Globes are in trouble again.
This morning the NY Post’s Page Six reports the group’s owner, Penske Media, is selling tickets for $70,000 a couple.
I’ve confirmed it because the evidence is still online through the Robb Report, owned by Penske, which also owns Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline.com, as well as Rolling Stone and Billboard. (See the ad below. They did the same thing last year, too. )
Penske bought the Golden Globes — produced by Dick Clark Productions, which they also own — after the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was charged with racism and financial mismanagement.
That was when the show jumped from NBC to CBS, where it had been decades ago. But in 1982, CBS dropped the Globes after actress Pia Zadora’s wealthy husband was accused of buying her the New Star of the Year Award by lavishly gifting and entertaining the group’s members.
At all the years with NBC, I and others reported about the HFPA’s shenanigans. Selling tickets for profit to outsiders was always a scheme whispered about over the years. For the right price, you could get a seat in the hotel ballroom with the stars.
When Penske (and partner Eldridge Industries) took over the Globes and ended the HFPA there was hope that all the backstage antics and double dealing was over. But in the last few weeks, showbiz newsletters Puck and The Ankler have been reporting a new level of issues.
The Globes added a category called Best Podcast, which was curious and irrelevant. According to the newsletters, Penske then required the potential nominees to advertise across their platforms to get votes from their Globes members.
Currently, there are big, lit up video ads playing in Times Square promoting right wing conservative Ben Shapiro’s podcast — as if there were Golden Globes voters who’d be influenced by them. The chances of that are 1 in 1 million. But Shapiro paid the money to Penske and the ads are running in case someone on the way to Penn Station is voting in the Globes.
The $70,000 ticket price is no surprise. Since Penske took over the Globes, voters have had trouble getting seats in the Beverly Hilton ballroom. The company has allegedly been stuffing the room with giveaways to corporate friends. Members of the Globes, which include many former HFPA, have complained about being put in an overflow room and being invited to the after party.
Will CBS take a dim view of this latest report? Hard to say since they are now under new ownership that likely laid claim to its own block of tickets.
PS The Globes are supposed to be broadcast on January 11, 2026. They are the second awards show of the season, preceded by the scandal free Critics Choice Awards on January 4th.
