NBC comedy stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will host the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards, it was announced Monday.
The hosts team is something of a coup for the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn, which awards the Globes each January, and for Dick Clark Productions, which produces the high-rated show for NBC. Fey, the popular creator-star of 30 Rock and such films as Date Night and Mean Girls, has in the past turned down overtures to host the Academy Awards. She and Poehler, who stars on NBC's Parks and Recreation, are friends and former SNL cast-mates.
“Having both Tina Fey and Amy Poehler on board to host this year’s festivities is a major coup,” said Paul Telegdy, President, Alternative and Late Night Programming, NBC Entertainment, in a statement. “Tina and Amy have a proven chemistry and comedic timing from their many years together on SNL to their successful co-starring roles in Baby Mama.”
The hiring of Fey, 42, and Poehler, 41, two well-known comic talents with big fan bases — and large followings among women, who make up the majority of awards show viewers — could be seen as a direct shot by the Globes at the Oscars, which went with a less-known and more male-skewing host in Seth MacFarlane. In addition, the Academy, in a move perceived by some in Hollywood to be an attack on the Globes, moved up its voting deadline this year so that the Oscar nominations announcement will take place Jan 10, three days before the Globes ceremony. (In past years, the Oscar noms were announced after the Globes.) With the Oscar nominees known, the thinking goes, viewers might be less interested in which actors win Globes, and some presenters and honorees might be less inclined to participate in the Globes if they were overlooked by the Academy and would be asked about the snubs incessently on the red carpet.
“The unparalleled comedic timing of Tina and Amy will surely have viewers wanting to tune-in to see them in action,” said HFPA president Aida Takla-O'Reilly in a statement. “The HFPA is thrilled to have the magnetic duo be a part of the show’s 70th anniversary!”
The 2013 Globes is a key show for organizers. It's the first ceremony to take place after Dick Clark Prods was purchased in September by Guggenheim Partners for about $370 million, more than twice what the company was sold for in 2007. (Guggenheim also is an owner of The Hollywood Reporter parent company Prometheus Global Media.) And the January show is the first to take place in the wake of a key ruling in the long-running litigation between the HFPA and Dick Clark over whether Dick Clark had the right in 2010 to negotiate a long-term television deal with NBC that lasts until 2018. In May, a judge ruled in favor of Dick Clark, and the HFPA has appealed.
The Globes in January also will be the first ceremony since the April death of Dick Clark, who rescued the show in the early 1980s when it had lost its broadcast network television deal and set it on a path to success. Clark's death will likely be acknowledged on the 2013 show.