Entertainment

How do you discover the next “big thing?” In this over-connected world, there is no end to the way people can seek out new music, books, TV shows and movies. GigaOM Pro is releasing a comprehensive report today at paidContent 2012 about those sharing methods, and some of the results are surprising.

GigaOM Pro‘s report, The Discovery Democracy: How Social Discovery is Transforming Entertainment, looks at the media discovery habits of more than 1,100 U.S. fans and charts and explains how they get recommendations.

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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Last week, Forbes crowned Jennifer Lopez the most powerful celebrity out there. When taken together, the two articles that go into further detail about why she tops the list give a variety of reasons for the selection:

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Will Smith is making  major appearances for the third installment of the Men in Black franchise. In a recent appearance on BBC’s The Graham Norton Show, Smith talks about his lifelong association with The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and led a sing-along of the program’s theme song with the audience, who clearly knew every single syllable uttered in the ditty.

“Television really attaches you to people in a way that’s extremely powerful. It’s humbling,” says Smith.

More about Smith’s round-the-world promo tour here.

Days after announcing a partnership with ABC that will target Hispanic viewers with an English language 24-hour news station and other media, Univision has announced the launch of UVideos Digital Network, a video platform with Univision content. Videos will be accessible across a variety of gadgets and available to both English- and Spanish-speaking audiences.

This announcement was accompanied by a few others: new Webnovelas that build on the success of two previous shows, “Vidas Cruzadas” and “No Me Hallo”; broadband partnerships; and partnerships with companies like YouTube and Dish to increase distribution.

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We’re new viewers of Mad Men, but we’ve noticed that most every week, on Monday morning, something from the previous night’s show makes headlines. Whether it’s an outstanding performance of a French classic, or a new song celebrating Betty Draper’s rotund physique, each episode of the show has long legs for one reason or another.

The show started making news last night for including The Beatles song “Tomorrow Never Knows” towards the end of the episode. Right away, we started to see tweeters questioning how much was paid to get permission to use the tune.

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Everyone knows about the upfronts, which typically give broadcasters the chance to speak with media buyers about all the ad spots they should be purchasing. However, the proliferation of digital has shined a renewed spotlight on the ”NewFront.”

NBCUniversal has announced a ton of new digital content for everything from the Golf Channel, CNBC, and The Weather Channel to Daily Candy, Today.com, and Fandango. The digital offerings have positioned a digital ad buy and the traditional broadcast ad purchase as an integrated investment. NBCU’s NewFront event (coverage here and here) had celebs in moderation and did away with screenings, but there were tons of announcements made about some of the new options available.

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Still smarting from the huge losses tied to the film John Carter, Disney is now banking on The Avengers, the Marvel comic hero extravaganza that opens May 3, but had its Los Angeles premiere last night. And unlike John Carter, which can attribute its losses, in part, to the marketing effort, Disney is backing this film up with promotional power.

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Oprah Winfrey has inked a deal with Comcast that will bring her struggling OWN channel to millions of additional homes. The deal will tack on three million-plus Comcast subscribers to the pool of potential viewers and put a little cash in the network’s coffers. Comcast had been carrying the channel without paying a subscriber fee. That will change at the beginning of 2013.

The news comes on the heels of statements from Oprah addressing the problems the network has had since it launched. She spoke with Access Hollywood about some of the things she had to learn about running a network, like if you want people to watch, you have make it easy for them to find. (Good advice for PRs doing events.) She also sets the record straight about her relationship with Rosie O’Donnell, saying the two handled the cancellation of Rosie’s show like adults without any of the reported bickering.

And on CBS This Morning, she made the quote of the day, saying she “might have done something else” had she known how difficult launching a network would be. She also made a few points that we think would be food for thought for anyone launching campaign.

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Brands and celebrities go together like peanut butter and jelly. My Love Affair, a London-based firm, works to bring the two together in a harmonious and delicious sandwich.

Founded by former Omnicom Media France MD Raphaël Aflalo and Cathy Guetta, wife of music superstar David Guetta, the firm has been around since 2011 and has worked with clients including Chanel, LVMH, and HP. The firm has six employees, a second office in Paris, and business dealings around the world. The company announced in October 2011 that it had hired 5WPR for outreach here in the U.S.

In today’s Q&A, Cathy Guetta talks with us about the firm, its latest partnership, and what it really means to be a “celebrity.”

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Ahead of this weekend’s Kids Choice Awards, airing on Nickelodeon, SodaHead has gathered opinions about some of the best in family entertainment over the years.

SodaHead is a site that offers polling services and the chance for brands to interact with the youths. According to the poll, the best family movie of 2011 was Puss In Boots, the best for the 00′s was Harry Potter, and the best boy band is Backstreet Boys (incorrect; NKOTB forever).

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