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Actress and producer Dame Helen Mirren has been named the 2026 Cecil B. DeMille Award recipient. The award will be presented on the new annual primetime special Golden Eve, airing Thursday, Jan. 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
The special will also honor the recipient of the 2026 Carol Burnett Award, who has yet to be named.
The Golden Eve special will feature curated career retrospectives, never-before-seen footage, and in-depth conversations with the honorees. It will air during what the Golden Globes organization is calling Golden Week, a weeklong experience across Paramount platforms as well as celebratory kick-off events ahead of the 83rd annual Golden Globes. That show, hosted by comedian and actress Nikki Glaser, is set to air live on Sunday, Jan. 11.
“Helen Mirren is a force of nature and her career is nothing short of extraordinary,” Helen Hoehne, president, Golden Globes, said in a statement. “Her transcendent performances and commitment to her craft continue to inspire generations of artists and audiences alike.”
Mirren’s accolades include three Golden Globes, an Academy Award, five Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, a BAFTA Film Award, three BAFTA Television Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award. She has also received the BAFTA Fellowship, Honorary Golden Bear, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. Mirren was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003.
Mirren will become the first British recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award since Anthony Hopkins in 2006. Other recipients who were born in Britain are Alfred Hitchcock (1972), Laurence Olivier (1983), Elizabeth Taylor (1985), Audrey Hepburn (1990) and Sean Connery (1996).
First created in 1952 and honoring the eponymous director, the Cecil B. DeMille Award has been bestowed upon 69 honorees. The Carol Burnett Award, created in 2019 and initially awarded to its namesake, is presented to an honoree who has made outstanding contributions to television on or off screen.
The Golden Globes, which likes to call itself Hollywood’s Party of the Year, is the largest awards show in the world to celebrate the best of film, television and now podcasting. Dick Clark Productions will plan, host and produce the annual Golden Globes.
The Golden Globes are produced by Dick Clark Productions, which is owned by Penske Media Eldridge, a joint venture between Eldridge Industries and Billboard parent company Penske Media.
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Artist David Banner, Pastor Shirley Caesar and business entrepreneur Janice Bryant Howroyd will be saluted at the 2025 HBCU Honors. BET returns as presenting partner of the third annual celebration, which will premiere Thanksgiving weekend on BET and BET Her (Nov. 30, 8 p.m. ET/PT).
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Grammy-nominated rapper-producer-activist Banner, an alumnus of Southern University, will be presented with the Cultural Impact Award. Also an actor (BET’s The Family Business), Banner is being recognized for his multi-faceted pursuits as an artist, founder/CEO of full-service music and production agency A Banner Vision, and humanitarian, stemming from his organizing of relief efforts during Hurricane Katrina.
Shirley “The First Lady of Gospel” Caesar, senior pastor of Mount Calvary Word of Faith Church in Durham, North Carolina, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. The Shaw University graduate’s six-decade career encompasses more than 40 albums, 11 Grammy Awards and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. The Visionary Founder Award will go to Howroyd, founder/CEO of The ActOne Group, a global enterprise that provides employment, workforce management and other services to a diverse range of industries and businesses. Howroyd is an alumna of North Carolina A&T State University.
Being taped at a new location — the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C. — HBCU Honors is also implementing two new initiatives this year focused on discovering and developing next-gen creative talent. The HBCU Honors Rising Star National Talent Search is open to HBCU students who will be vying for the chance to perform live on the HBCU Honors stage. Judging the competition will be Tony Award–winning actor and Bowie State University alum Myles Frost; American Idol finalist Gabby Samone; GRAMMY-nominated artist Raheem Devaughn, who attended Coppin State University; and HBCU Honors music director Shawn Williams.
The second initiative, HBCU Honors Media Futures Fellowship, was created by The HBCU Honors Foundation as a workforce development and mentorship program. The 2025 participating cohort includes students from Johnson C. Smith University, Lincoln University of Missouri, and Spelman College.
Emmy-nominated actress, comedian and podcaster Kym Whitley is returning as host. About her return engagement, the Fisk University alumna commented in the press announcement, “Hosting HBCU Honors again feels like coming home. This show is a joyful reminder of everything our schools represent — faith, excellence, community and legacy.”
HBCU Honors was established by Michelle M. Bailey. Doubling as an executive producer of the event, Bailey said in a statement, “We’re in a defining moment where the legacy of HBCUs deserves not only to be preserved but amplified. Our return to BET celebrates the unity, pride and progress that define HBCU excellence — the same excellence that nurtured me at my beloved alma mater, Spelman College. Thanksgiving weekend is the perfect time to honor the institutions that continue to educate, empower and shape generations of trailblazers.”
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BTS‘ Jimin and Jung Kook are hitting the road again next month. No, the K-pop group has not (yet) announced the dates for what fans are hoping will be their 2026 comeback tour. But the bandmates will be packing their bags for the upcoming second season of their hit reality travel series Are You Sure?!, which will premiere exclusively on Disney+ on Dec. 3.
According to a release, the second go-round of the show was filmed after the duo completed their mandatory South Korean military service and it “captures Jimin and BTS lead vocalist Jung Kook embarking on an unforgettable 12-day journey that spans from the majestic mountains of Switzerland to the vibrant shores of Vietnam. Traveling light with only their luggage, a modest budget, and a trusty guidebook, the pair dive into a mix of thrilling adventures, serene getaways, and spontaneous, fun-filled moments.”
The show will cover their 12-day adventure across eight episodes, with two new ones releasing every Wednesday from the premiere date through Dec. 24. “Viewers can look forward to plenty of heartwarming camaraderie, breathtaking scenery, and the unfiltered humor and chemistry that made the first season a fan favorite,” according to the release.
In the first season, fans watched the pair explore New York state, as well as Jeju Island in their native South Korea and Sapporo, Japan.
The show will be the table-setter for the main course, which will find the pair reuniting with Jin, Suga, RM, J-Hope and V next year now that all the group’s members have completed their military training. Their comeback will come a full five years after the release of their last proper studio album, Be, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in Nov. 2020. Since then, fans have had their thirst for BTS content slaked thanks to a series of solo albums, singles and tours.
Now, the countdown is ticking on what promises to be a big year for the crew, with an album and world tour on tap.
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SYDNEY, Australia — More than three-and-a-half years after the siren sounded, the Australian government is activating local content quotas for popular streaming video on-demand platforms operating on these shores.
Confirmed Tuesday, Nov. 4, the new obligation will require those services with over 1 million domestic subscribers to invest 10% of total program expenditure here, or 7.5% of their total Australian revenue, to supporting local storytelling.
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Netflix, Disney, Amazon and other SVOD services will be compelled to comply by the legislation, which will be introduced to Parliament this week, the ABC reports.
Those quotas must pass that bar set by the Australian Content and Children’s Television Standard (ACCTS), meeting or exceeding the same requirements currently applied to commercial and subscription television services.
“We have Australian content requirements on free-to-air television and pay television, but until now, there has been no guarantee that we could see our own stories on streaming services,” minister for the arts Tony Burke remarked.
“Since their introduction in Australia, streaming services have created some extraordinary shows. This obligation will ensure that those stories — our stories — continue to be made.”
APRA AMCOS celebrated the announcement as an “incredible first step for Australia.” Whether the next step is a long-mooted content quotas for streaming music platforms, time will tell.
The Australian-made regulation, says Dean Ormston, CEO of APRA AMCOS, is a critical mechanism “within a global content market where extraordinary local stories and local music can be drowned out by content from major overseas markets.”
Critically, he adds, “the obligation includes requirements to spend on post-production in Australia, opening the door for Australian screen composers and local music to play a central role in telling our stories. This represents a significant new opportunity for Australia’s music creators.”
The Albanese government’s announcement follows the presentation last week of APRA AMCOS’s 2025 Screen Music Awards, and delivers on Canberra’s commitment in its national cultural policy, the five-year action plan dubbed Revive.
With its presentation in January 2023, the federal government mapped out a timeline for legislation that would enforce local content quotas on streaming platforms. “For video streaming,” federal minister of the arts Tony Burke said at the time, “the timeline is locked in.”
The new rules should’ve been implemented in 2024 but were delayed over concerns on how they might create a stumbling block for Australia’s trade agreement with the United States.
The champagne corks aren’t exactly flying, but the Australian creative community has cause to celebrate. The government’s commitment to investing in Australian storytelling comes on the heels of last week’s decision that there would be no exception for big tech in Australia’s copyright regime to allow for text and data mining.
“This announcement marks a landmark day for the Australian screen industry,” enthuses Screen Producers Australia CEO Matthew Deaner. “For too long, our local production sector has operated in an uneven environment where global streaming services could reap the benefits of doing business in Australia without contributing fairly to the creation of Australian stories.”
The commitment is “the result of years of advocacy,” he continues. “It recognizes that Australian stories matter, and that they deserve to be seen and heard on every platform.”
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Robert Irwin, Alix Earle and Whitney Leavitt rocked, so too did Chicago, while one unfortunate couple rolled out of the competition as Dancing With The Stars celebrated Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Night.
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On Tuesday night (Oct. 4), all eyes were on Irwin, once again, as the Australian conversationist and his dancing pro partner Witney Carson hit the main floor.
Drenched in red light, Irwin, son of the late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin and younger brother of Bindi, who won the 21st season of DWTS, in 2015, transformed into a matador for a paso doble to The White Stripes’ “Icky Thump.”
The judges loved the routine, as Irwin and Carson were awarded 38 out of 40, matching their season-high from last week’s Halloween Night. Only the teams of Alix Earle and Val Chmerkovskiy, and Whitney Leavitt and Mark Ballas (both with 39/40), fared better.
No pairing has yet landed a perfect score in this 34th season of DWTS.
However, Danielle Fishel and Pasha Pashkov failed to hit the right note with their contemporary dance to “Dream On” by Aerosmith, which came in at the bottom of the pack with 34/40. The lowest score of the night means elimination, so the actress and her pro partner are out. Live votes are cast during the East Coast airing and ends shortly after the final performance is completed.
Also on Rock Hall night, the group dances returned with a bang as the cast was evenly split in two, and teamed up alongside one of the co-hosts, Julianne Hough and Alfonso Ribeiro.
The winner was Ribeiro’s “Team Chicago” performance, with Danielle (team captain) and Pasha; Whitney and Mark; Jordan and Ezra; and Dylan and Daniella, earning a perfect 40/40.
Chicago, which was inducted into the Rock Hall in the class of 2016, provided the score with a rendition of “25 or 6 to 4.”
Dancing with the Stars airs live Tuesdays on ABC and Disney+, and streams the next day on Hulu. The finale will be on Nov. 25.
Rock And Roll Hall of Fame Night Scores
Dylan Efron and Daniella Karagach: 36/40Alix Earle and Val Chmerkovskiy: 39/40Andy Richter and Emma Slater: 30/40Whitney Leavitt and Mark Ballas: 39/40Danielle Fishel and Pasha Pashkov: 34/40 (ELIMINATED)Elaine Hendrix and Alan Bersten: 37/40Jordan Chiles and Ezra Sosa: 38/40Robert Irwin and Witney Carson: 38/40
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A coalition of top independent labels has joined forces to launch Catalog, a curated music licensing marketplace designed to let artists sync their music and receive real-time compensation.
Beggars Group, Domino, Ninja Tune, Warp, Partisan Records and Erased Tapes are among the early supporters of the platform, which launches Wednesday (Nov. 5) via music supervision company Too Young Ltd.
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Created by Frederic Schindler, AIM’s music supervisor of the Year 2025, the platform will debut with more than 30,000 sync-ready tracks from over 1,800 artists, with the aim of serving as an antidote to the royalty-free stock music economy.
Catalog arrives with the intention of helping to put more money into artists’ pockets. Creatives are able to set sync offers via its Sync Smart Pricing technology, which analyzes data points on an artist and song history to generate market-rate fees. The process thus allows for approvals faster, bypassing the traditional exchange of documents and any subsequent red-lines by auto-generating a final license once the terms have been agreed upon between stakeholders.
While searching for music on Catalog, creatives can use advanced filters such as audio similarity, and audio-to-picture auditioning, as well as being guided by a human-led “editorial search” mode to find relevant tracks. Artists signed up to the platform include Kurt Vile, Yves Tumor, Ela Minus, Marie Davidson and Icelandic multi-instrumentalist Ólafur Arnalds.
By providing this technology, Catalog is seeking to reduce the number of sync exchanges with “ghost artist libraries” – stock music attributed to anonymous musicians, presumably in an effort to reduce sync payouts for advertisements, video content and so forth.
“Catalog is the result of a deep collaboration with the most forward-thinking rights holders in the industry,” Schindler explained to Billboard U.K. “This is what happens when artists, labels, publishers, managers, and supervisors come together to address a problem. We’re not ‘disrupting’ them; we’re building this new era together.”
Ahead of its launch, Catalog music director Thierry Planelle worked with Veronique Nichanian, creative director of Hermès, to replace a key track for the fashion house’s Men’s Ready to Wear 2026 runway prior to the show. The feat prompted an endorsement from Christof Ellinghaus, founder and CEO of revered indie City Slang.
“This placement very quickly demonstrated Catalog’s ease of process and powerful usability,” Ellinghaus said in a press release. “We are excited about the prospects ahead with this great new platform. And trust us, we usually hate platforms!”
Membership applications for Catalog are now open in the U.K., Europe, US, Canada and Mexico. Further access information can be found on its official website.
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Robert Taylor, former lead guitarist and backing vocalist with ARIA Hall of Fame-inducted rock band Dragon, has died aged 74.
Taylor’s passing was confirmed in a social post by ex-drummer Kerry Jacobson.
“I’m writing to share the unexpected and devastating news of the passing of my mentor, my partner in crime for some of the best times, my musical comrade through the hardest of times and my dear friend of decades…the irreplacable (sic) Robert Taylor,” he writes.
“Many admired his songwriting and his musical talent and, after all these years people would still speak to me with great reverence of his talent and contribution to Australian music.
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“I admired his loyalty, I treasured his mateship, I valued his consistency and I absolutely loved it when often the phone would ring and he was up for a chat.”
Born in Waipukarau, New Zealand, Taylor had a hand in some of the most enduring Australasian songs of a generation.
Dragon was formed in Auckland, NZ, and relocated to Sydney, Australia in the mid-70s. Led by the band’s flamboyant and self-destructive frontman Marc Hunter, Dragon pumped out the hits, initially in the back-end of the 1970s with “Are You Old Enough?,” “April Sun In Cuba” and “Still In Love With You”.
The ‘80s wasn’t kind to many bands from the previous decade, but Dragon orchestrated an impressive comeback with the 1983 album Body and the Beat, which spawned the hits “Rain,” “Cry,” and “Magic.” The first of those, “Rain,” poured down for a Billboard Hot 100 appearance in 1984, peaking at No. 88.
Taylor was there as Dragon spread its wings for two distinct heydays, performing in the band from 1974–1979, and again from 1982–1985.
Dragon continued to breathe chart fire through the ‘80s with “Speak No Evil,” “Dreams of Ordinary Men,” “Young Years” and a cover of Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration.”
Dragon was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2008, ten years after Hunter died with throat cancer, at the age of 44. Taylor joined his surviving Dragon bandmates for the special Hall of Fame presentation at Melbourne Town Hall.
Taylor “had a dry wit, was a keen observer and had a memory like a razor but mostly he was just one of the good ones,” writes Jacobson. “That’s what has stuck in my head today “he was one of the good ones” and I think that sums it up. I will miss him terribly. My love and condolences to Carol, Lesley and Alex.”
Today, Dragon continues to tour and record with a lineup featuring co-founder and bass player Todd Hunter — Marc’s brother — and Mark Williams on vocals.
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Nick Cave’s bad boy Bunny comes to life for a six-part streaming series, The Death of Bunny Munro, the first trailer for which has dropped online.
BAFTA and Emmy-nominated Matt Smith (Doctor Who, The Crown, House of the Dragon) takes the lead as Munro, a slippery door-to-door salesman on a road trip with his young son, played by Rafael Mathé in his television debut, following the death of his wife by suicide.
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In the new clip, Bunny takes Junior on the road for a eventful sales trek around Brighton and the surrounding coast, an area familiar to Cave, the Australian-born alternative rock legend who has called the English seaside home for some decades.
“My dad,” says Bunny Junior in the trailer, “he’s the best salesman in the world.” The youngster doesn’t know the half of it.
Cuts of Jarvis Cocker’s “Black Magic,” and Cave’s “Bright Horses” soundtrack the clip, which can be seen in full below.
Following Libby’s death, Munro, a sex addicted beauty product salesman and “self-professed lothario” finds himself “saddled with a young son and only a loose concept of parenting,” reads a plot synopsis from Sky.
“Together with nine-year-old Bunny Junior he embarks on an epic and increasingly out-of-control road trip across southern England as the two struggle to contain their grief in very different ways.”
First published in 2009, The Death of Bunny Munro is Cave’s second novel after And the Ass Saw the Angel from 1989.
The forthcoming series was written by BAFTA winner Pete Jackson (Somewhere Boy) and directed by BAFTA-nominated Isabella Eklöf (Industry, Holiday), with an original score by Cave and his longtime collaborator Warren Ellis. Cave also serves as executive producer for the show, produced by Clerkenwell Films in association with Sky Studios.
Cave is, of course, the celebrated frontman of The Bad Seeds, and several seminal outfits including The Boys Next Door, The Birthday Party, Grinderman and more.
In the United Kingdom., his adopted homeland, the band has landed seven top 10 albums, including Wild God, which opened and peaked at No. 5.
Wild God, released through Cave’s own label Bad Seed, via a new, exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with Play It Again Sam, an imprint of the independent [PIAS] label group, was nominated for a raft of awards, including two Grammy categories (best alternative music album and best alternative music performance), best alternative rock record at the Libera Awards and the 2024 Australian Music Prize.
Cave was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2007, and has won eight ARIA Awards for his solo or group work.
The Death of Bunny Munro will air on Sky Atlantic and streaming services Now and Binge from Nov. 20.
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Live Nation reported an 11% increase in total revenue in the third quarter on Tuesday (Nov. 4), the result of continued fan demand for live music and a shift to stadiums from amphitheaters and arenas.
On a call with analysts and investors, CEO Michael Rapino and COO Joe Berchtold discussed the finer points of the results. Although it’s only November, all signs point to more growth in revenue, ticket sales, attendance and sponsorships in 2026. Fan demand isn’t falling back to earth any time soon, and Live Nation has made investments — renovations, new venues and acquisitions — to capture as much of that demand as possible.
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Here are some of the highlights from the earnings call and Tuesday’s earnings release.
Stadiums Dominated 2025 and Will Be Big Again in 2026
In the concert business, the venue matters. Live Nation’s owned and operated amphitheaters historically generate better margins than other venues, but in 2025, there have been more stadium shows. “A lot of artists decided not to play arenas and amphitheaters and go for stadiums,” said Rapino. In fact, in the third quarter, Live Nation had 250 fewer amphitheater shows and 120 more stadium shows, according to Berchtold. But because Live Nation operates some of those stadiums — such as Rogers Stadium in Toronto and Estadio GNP in Mexico City — those shows boosted the quarter’s per-fan profitability, Berchtold said.
With the FIFA World Cup taking place in the U.S., Canada and Mexico in the summer of 2026, there have been some concerns that soccer matches would limit stadiums’ availability and put a damper on North America tours. But those fears “haven’t seemed to come to life,” Rapino said, adding that stadiums should have “a very strong year [in 2026].”
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Fans Keep Spending
People may be suffering through nagging inflation and feeling economic jitters, but music fans are proving to be a resilient bunch, as per-fan spending at Live Nation’s owned and operated venues rose 8% through October. Part of the growth comes down to offering the right products. Non-alcoholic drink sales were up by 20%, and ready-to-drink options were up, too. The growth can also be attributed to renovations at amphitheaters that created VIP areas with premium food and beverage options.
Amidst the growing importance of VIP options to Live Nation’s business, the company said it’s not seeing any pullback from lower income brackets. “No, we have not seen any of that,” Rapino said when asked by Citi analyst Jason Bazinet if there was evidence of “bimodal” consumer behavior. Many shows for 2026 are already on sale, Rapino noted, and the company saw “no pull-back anywhere.”
More Gains into the Fourth Quarter and 2026
The fourth quarter and 2026 are expected to continue the trends seen in the first three quarters of 2025. Deferred revenue — money collected but not yet recognized as revenue for accounting purposes — is an important metric for assessing demand for upcoming events. Live Nation’s deferred revenue is up big from a year earlier: Event-related deferred revenue of $3.5 billion was up 37% from the prior-year period, and Ticketmaster’s deferred revenue of $231 million was up 30%. In addition, Live Nation says its large venue show pipeline for 2026 is up by double-digits, and ticket sales for concerts in 2026 have already reached 26 million. Sponsorship commitments for 2026 are up double-digits, too, according to the company.
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An International Tipping Point is Coming
Fans at international concerts are on track to surpass U.S. fans, the company revealed on Tuesday. In fact, international business is driving Live Nation’s growth. Whereas total fee-bearing gross transaction value (GTV) was up 7%, it rose 16% in international markets. And of the 26.5 million net new tickets from Ticketmaster enterprise clients, 70% came from outside the U.S. Additionally, more than half of the 5 million fans expected to attend concerts at Live Nation’s large (over 3,000 capacity) venues in 2026 will come from international markets.
Confidence in the Federal Antitrust Lawsuit
The U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster is set to go to trial on March 6. While the company’s latest quarterly SEC filing admits the case “could involve significant monetary costs or penalties,” its executives are publicly confident the lawsuit won’t lead to a nuclear option: namely, breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Berchtold pointed to the remedies decision in September in the Department of Justice’s case against Google, which aimed to restore competition in the internet search and search advertising markets. The court placed certain remedies on Google — a ban on exclusive distribution of Google Search and Chrome, for example — but didn’t break up the company. To Live Nation, the decision “very much validated our view that the claims in our case can’t lead to a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster even if the DOJ prevails on one claim or another,” said Berchtold.
Trending on Billboard The sheer number of artist signings announced on a weekly basis makes it difficult to keep up, no matter how closely you pay attention to the industry news cycle. That’s why every other Tuesday, Billboard compiles the latest signings to labels, distributors, agencies, management companies and more, in an effort to provide […]
