The red carpet will have to wait.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced late Monday that recipients of 65th annual Golden Globe Awards will be honored during an hour-long press conference rather than a televised ceremony.

During a day of negotiations, the HFPA, Globes producer Dick Clark Productions, and the striking Writers Guild of America tried to broker a deal that would allow the event and telecast to take place in some form, according to reports on Variety.com and other online sources.

The resulting agreement is for a live press conference at the Beverly Hilton to be broadcast by NBC News at 9 p.m. on January 13. The event that is normally telecast — “The 65th Annual Golden Globe Awards” NBC telecast and champagne dinner in the Beverly Hilton’s International Ballroom — is officially canceled.

“We are all very disappointed that our traditional awards ceremony will not take place this year and that millions of viewers worldwide will be deprived of seeing many of their favorite stars celebrating 2007’s outstanding achievements in motion pictures and television,” the president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Jorge Camara, said in a statement. “We take some comfort, however, in knowing that this year’s Golden Globe Award recipients will be announced on the date originally scheduled.”

The writers at NBC News are covered under a separate labor contract and thus are not on strike against the network. The Writers Guild vowed to picket the Golden Globes if the HFPA and NBC tried to proceed with the traditional telecast. The threat gained momentum last week when representatives for many of the stars expected to attend announced that their clients would not cross picket lines to attend the telecast.

During negotiations yesterday, the HFPA and NBC had hoped the nominees would have a red-carpet arrival event outside the Beverly Hilton, after which they would split off to various parties already planned for each film and television show. An HFPA official would read the winners on the live telecast, then cameras would cut to star reactions from the party sites. As of Monday night, it was unclear if any of these contingency plans will occur.

The HFPA had come under some pressure to postpone the event, but the organization insisted on keeping its traditional mid-January slot in order to hold its place in the pre-Academy Awards season.

Staff Reporter of the Sun