The cancellation of the traditional lavish event, usually the first high-profile one in Tinseltown's self-celebrative awards season, have left more people talking about the changed format of the announcement than about who will actually win the awards.

The show was canceled when it became clear that none of the awards' nominees or presenter would cross the striking writers' picket lines to attend the event. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which hands out the awards, decided to air a hour-long news conference announcing the winners.

Although Golden Globes are often promoted as an early indicator of who will win on Oscar night, the industry's biggest one, observers say some other less famous awards might be better predictors of Academy Awards success.

The Golden Globes differ broadly from the Oscars, partly because the Globes include nominations for television and feature two categories in major honors for the movie field, one for dramas and the other for musicals or comedies.

Since the 1963 adoption of the split format between dramas and musicals/comedies, 68 percent of the films that first received a Golden Globe ended up with best picture Academy Awards. The drama winner has gone on to win best picture 24 of 44 times, while the musical/comedy winner has only won six times.

But none of the Golden Globes' best movie drama winners have gone on to win the best picture Oscar in the past three years. The last time that the Golden Globes and the Oscars agreed was for films released in 2003, when "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" won both awards.

Meanwhile, the various guild awards, notably those handed out by the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild, are better at predicting the acting and directing Oscars than the Golden Globes.

The credibility of the Golden Globe Awards has long been questioned because of the relatively small membership of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which consists of about 85 journalists who cover entertainment for foreign media.