Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to Co-Host Golden Globes on Separate Coasts (EXCLUSIVE) – Variety

The 78th Annual Golden Globe Awards is going bicoastal. Hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, returning to helm the the ceremony for the first time since 2015, won’t be in the same room together: Instead, Fey will broadcast live from The Rainbow Room (at the top of Rockefeller Center) in New York City, while Poehler will host from the Globes’ usual spot inside the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.

This marks the first time that the Golden Globes has been beamed from multiple locations in its 78-year history, but not the first time an awards show has been simultaneously held in both New York and Los Angeles, as the Oscars did it for several years in the mid-1950s. The decision to station Fey on the East Coast and Poehler on the West Coast comes as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, NBC and Globes producers Dick Clark Prods. continue to iron out plans for this year’s awards show and adjust to the realities of mounting such a telecast during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among details still to be revealed: Whether presenters and nominees will be invited to participate in person, by remote means or via a mixture of both (which is what the Primetime Emmys did last September). By having two production bases on both coasts, that could allow for more opportunities to include talent working on the East Coast or in Europe who might not otherwise be able to travel to Los Angeles. It also presumably allows Fey to remain put in her home base of New York.

The ceremony will air live on Sunday, Feb.28, at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET on NBC — pushed back nearly two months later than normal due to the pandemic. Television nomination ballots were due on Jan. 12, while motion picture nomination ballots were due on Jan. 30. Final ballots will be mailed to all HFPA members by Ernst & Young on Feb. 10, and will be due by 5 p.m. on Feb. 23.

As previously announced, Satchel and Jackson Lee, children of filmmaker and three-time Golden Globe nominee Spike Lee, and producer/philanthropist Tonya Lewis Lee, have been tapped to serve as the 2021 Golden Globe Ambassadors.

News of this year’s bicoastal Globes comes on the eve of Wednesday morning’s nominations announcement. Sarah Jessica Parker and Taraji P. Henson will announce major category nominees for the 78th Annual Golden Globe Awards on Wednesday at 5:35 a.m. PT/8:35 am ET, live on NBC’s “Today” show. Dick Clark Prods. president Amy Thurlow and Barry Adelman, exec VP of TV, are executive producers of the telecast. Ali Sar is president of the HFPA.

Ricky Gervais hosted last year’s 77th Golden Globe Awards, which was one of the most-watched network telecasts of the year, averaging 19.2 million viewers on Jan. 5, 2020.