A Winning Globes Broadcast and Studios Awards Boost

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NBC's Golden Globes award broadcast was a real winner—it was the highest rated since 2007, bringing in nearly 20 million viewers. And in the crucial 18 to 49 year-old demographic, ratings grew 28 percent. NBC, which broadcasts the show, will benefit from the surge in viewers, and the fact that the show, hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, will prove a successful launch pad for NBC's shows and its sister studio Universal's films, which advertised during the broadcast.

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So who else won? Each gold statuette meant free advertising to those 20 million viewers, which has the potential to drive ticket sales for movies, and ratings for TV shows. Homeland, which is produced by Fox (NWS) and airs on CBS' Showtime (CBS), swept the TV awards. Universal's Les Miserables won more than any other film-- Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Actor. But Sony brought home more wins than any other studio—including Jessica Chastain's win for Best Actress and Best Foregin Film with 'Amour.'

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This weekend also saw the impact of Oscar nominations, which were released Thursday morning. Bolstered by five nominations—Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Film Editing, Actress in a Leading Role, and Sound Editing—Sony's Zero Dark Thirty dominated the box office, bringing in about $25 million this weekend after expanding nation-wide. This brings the film's total US gross to nearly $30 million. And it puts the film on its way to be Kathryn Bigelow's biggest movie yet—it could even beat cult hit Point Break, which grossed $84 million worldwide back in 1991.

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Oscar nominations have the biggest impact on the smallest films. We're seeing the effect on Sony's "Amour," which won best foreign film at the Globes and is a frontrunner for the same win at the Oscars. And we're seeing the hope for the Academy's Oscar gold benefit other films as well.

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Fox's Lincoln, which has 12 Oscar nominations, more than any other film, saw its box office take grew 17 percent from the prior weekend in the wake of the nominations for a new total of $153 million. Meanwhile Silver Linings Playbook, from the private The Weinstein Company, grew its box office nearly 40 percent over the prior weekend, before it was in the Oscar spotlight. All that Oscar buzz should bolster its performance as it expands to about 2,500 locations this coming weekend.

—By CNBC's Julia Boorstin; Follow her on Twitter: @JBoorstin