This Monday’s Golden Globe Awards promise to be another buzzworthy event with some of the world’s biggest stars attending in their gala bests. But you might only have one chance to check out all the on-stage action and fashion faux pas of the night.

Broadcaster NBC has imposed a $1,200 fee for photographs taken by the network inside the ballroom during the awards and four of the world’s biggest news agencies are refusing to pay the price.

The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Getty News Service, and WireImage were contacted by Eric van der Werff, director of photography for NBC Universal Television Entertainment on Monday. The five agencies were told that NBC was imposing the fee because it had bought a new computer server and is providing technical support for distribution of the “handout” photos. By Friday, only WireImage had paid the fee.

The Golden Globes are presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which allows only one NBC photographer inside the ballroom.

“We feel strongly that as the Golden Globe Awards show is an event of high public interest around the world, news agencies should be allowed independent access to the ceremony, as we are at other major award ceremonies,” said Santiago Lyon, AP’s director of photography.

AP has used the handouts free of charge in the past, but will not use them this year. Instead, AP, along with other affected news agencies, plan to use their own photos from the red carpet arrivals and the offstage press room only.

Earlier this awards season, news agencies faced similar problems at both the Billboard Music Awards and the Radio Music Awards, where heavy restrictions were also imposed on photos taken at the ceremonies.

Deb Trevino, a spokeswoman for Getty, said it was very unusual to be asked to pay a fee to distribute handout photos. “It’s not a precedent that we want set and that we wanted to support,” she said.






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