Don’t buy the fake headlines. The Golden Globes might have climbed out of its dismal 2021 and 2023 ratings, but the award show is still down 45 percent in the ratings compared to just five years ago.
Going back 25 years, the Golden Globes enjoyed a steady viewership that hovered right around the 20 million viewer mark. In 2021, it all fell apart when only 6.9 million tuned in. In 2023, a mere 6.3 million tuned in. Last year, 9.4 million watched. This year 10.1 million submitted.
Well, 2025’s 10.1 million is still 45 percent lower than 2023’s 18.3 million. Keep this in mind as you read these glowing stories:
Variety:
10.1 million viewers represents a 7% increase from last year’s show, which reached an average 9.4 million viewers (though last year’s total was measured by Nielsen). Hosted by Jo Koy, the 2024 ceremony was CBS’ first time airing the Golden Globes and achieved a 50% increase from NBC’s 2023 Globes telecast. (NBC’s viewership was likely impacted by the fact that 2023 marked the first Globes ceremony to take place after the scandals that wracked the now defunct Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which conducted the awards.)
Hollywood Reporter: “The Golden Globes are on the rise. The awards show saw its viewership rise from last year’s event, according to CBS.”
Deadline: “Either way, the Globes audience continues to be on an upswing after hitting its lowest level two years ago when the show returned to airwaves post-HFPA scandal with 6.3M Nielsen viewers.”
IndieWire: “Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards averaged 10.1 million viewers across CBS and Paramount+ (and the CBS app), according to Dick Clark Productions, up 7.4 percent from last January’s show.”
Only Deadline mentioned — in a single sentence deep in the article — the pre-2020 ratings numbers. The rest pretended it’s all upside.
Now we come to my favorite part…
All four of the publications linked above are owned by Penske Media.
Okay, that wasn’t my favorite part. This is my favorite part…
Penske Media also owns the Golden Globes.
Are you beginning to see how this works?
One media company has been allowed to corner the market on the industry’s top three trades, then purchase an award show, and then use gaslighting to boost the prestige and influence of a show that has lost nearly half its viewers in just five years. And that’s just what we know. Could it be that behind the scenes, those who submit to Penske Media exclusives, scoops, and access have a better chance of taking home a Golden Globe?
In 2024, only 817.8 million movie tickets were sold in our domestic market. That’s down almost 50 percent from 25 years ago and down close to 35 percent from five years ago.
Because they are preachy, pedantic, smug, scolding, and vehicles to groom little kids, the movies are losing their cultural power in a big way. To pretend that’s not happening, a monopoly on the entertainment media is required — a monopoly that will never-ever-ever admit why it’s happening.
But it doesn’t matter how much propaganda is pushed. It’s all coming apart.
Tee hee.
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