Gorgeous television and movie stars walk the red carpet, posing every so often for photos at the Golden Globes ceremony. The next morning, it is a guilty pleasure of many to discuss the winners and losers, along with the best and worst dressed, plus recollections of presentations and acceptance speeches throughout the ceremony.  

Well, that was how the Golden Globes, a ceremony which honors television shows and films of the past year, used to be. The Globes also mark the commencement of award season.  

This year, however, the three-hour broadcast was cut back to a mere one-hour press conference on Sunday, January 13. It was shortened to simply announcing the winners due to the great number of stars unwilling to cross the Writer’s Guild of America picket lines and because there were no scribes to write the ceremony itself.   

The WGA has been on strike since November 5.  

At nine o’clock on NBC, Access Hollywood’s Nancy O’Dell and Billy Bush stood at a podium and announced the categories, nominees, and winners. Throughout, they would offer their input on the winners. Occasionally, the program cut to Hollywood’s Shaun Robinson consulting with Dave Karger of Entertainment Weekly on his predictions and his opinions of the winners.   

The TV Guide channel’s Chris Harrison said, “The 65th Annual Golden Globes will go down in history as the show that never was.”  

The presentation itself got a 4.8 rating and 7 share, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research. Last year, the ceremony, also broadcast on NBC, had a 16.0 rating and 23 audience share, reported Nielsen. One ratings point is equal to 1,128,000 homes, or 1 percent of the nation’s estimated 112.8 million household televisions. The share number is a percentage of TVs set to a certain show.  

Compared to past ceremonies, this one was just a generic vanilla flavor. There was no glitz, glamour, or pizzazz, which is usually obtained at the Globes, as it is one of the only awards shows to bring together movies and television. The announcements themselves took place on the Access Hollywood set. Instead of stars dressed to the nines, viewers saw Bush and O’Dell dressed a little better than they normally do for their daily entertainment show. 

Steven Bryan, of AssociatedContent.com, wrote that if producers cannot “come up with anything better than two androids reciting grade-school level dialogue,” the Oscars are in danger of being permanently reduced to an afterthought.