Golden Globes 2019 to Introduce TV Lifetime Achievement Award
The Golden Globes are not only getting a new statuette in 2019, but a new award category, too, with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association revealing that a prize for lifetime achievement in television will be handed out at January's ceremony.
HFPA president Meher Tatna announced the news on Thursday, ahead of the release of the list of nominees for the 2019 Globes. According to Tatna, the new, as-yet-unnamed award will honor "the highest level of achievement in the medium" of television, and will serve as a TV-centric counterpart to the Cecil B. DeMille Award, which recognizes achievement in film.
"Honorees [will be] selected based on outstanding accomplishments as well as their impact and influence that their television career has had on industry and audiences," Tatna said.
As with the DeMille Award, the winner of this new honor will be revealed shortly before the Globes ceremony. This will mark the first new Globes category since 2007, which introduced Best Animated Feature; it's also the first lifetime achievement prize to be created since the DeMille Award, first presented to DeMille himself in 1952.
Past winners of the DeMille Award have included some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, and the 2018 honoree, Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey's speech was so electrifying that it briefly sparked rumors that she was planning a presidential run in 2020; while that didn't pan out, her speech still made for great TV, and we hope that the winner of this new prize will get an equally-awesome moment in the spotlight.
The 76th annual Golden Globe Awards will be handed out on Sunday, January 6 on NBC.
[via: Entertainment Weekly]